Focus is a simple concept and a very challenging practice.
Focus is understanding what is important and what not in your life, what you want to achieve and what is your end game. Where do you want to get before your time is over?
Focus is making short and medium term decisions about what to commit to and what to say no to. Is that next thing that looks so shiny and everybody is using going to help you get where you want to get before your time is over?
And focus is also a minute after minute choice on what to respond to, what has the power to distract you, to push you through a black hole of wasted time and energies. Should I keep notifications on or off? Shoul I keep the mail client always running in the background? Is it ok to be active in the official work chat? How do I react next time someone stops at my desk/office for a chat?
Turning off the mail client to enable sustained thinking is something we all should use more. It has many benefits. Using the out of office client reply can inform folks you will be back on line shortly.
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That’s a good point. After I have written the post, I was actually thinking that there is another level of focus. A part from understanding your long term, choosing for the medium-short term, and setting a zero-distraction environment, there’s also probably the most basic aspect of focus that is “sit down and do the work”. That is something I am still struggling with some days, as distraction can be easily pulled at any time without necessarily being pushed.
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There is a lot of talk about no email time here so that we can be more productive. Complex work requires zero distractions
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[…] after you have picked your long, medium and short term focus, and after you have made sure that the amount of push distraction (e-mails, notification, […]
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