A lot of the time, I find I struggle with focus. Im told that if I just focused more, I’d be more successful, a true force of nature to contend with.
How does one really train focus, though?
David Wong suggests the following:
The most important skill to master if you want to do well in your career is the skill of focus. I've been thinking a lot about focus in the past years, and I might exactly have the thing that'll change your work output forever... 1/n
First let me say that if you master focus, then everything will align perfectly. You'll learn the things you wanted to learn, you'll achieve the things you wanted to achieve, and this 10x or 100x ...
Focus is like stamina, it's not something that you're born with, it's something that increase with training. And like stamina, if you don't practice focus, you lose it. If the best runners are the ones who are always running, the most focused people are those who focus often...
The best thing to do to train focus is to use a pomodoro. You set it for 30min, and you start focusing on a task. Whenever you unfocus, you reset the timer. Once you reach 0, you can take a break. Any distraction is fair game: start looking at your email? Reset...
Start thinking about something irrelevant? Reset. Start looking at your phone? Reset. Start focusing on an optimization? Reset. Start thinking about that other cool protocol you should be reading about? Reset. After a while you'll be able to refocus on command...
There's really something sacrificial about focus. You must give up on things you want to do. Wanna hang out with your friends? No, finish this first. Want to write code instead? Nope, finish this first. You must constantly ask yourself: what is it I'm trying to focus on here.
Next time you decide to start a task, make sure you manage to catch yourself when your brain starts looking for an escape. Catch yourself, and refocus your brain on the task. Focus on what's in front of you and what's important. During breaks reprioritize. Never multitask.