Focus.

Authors note:

I found this in my drafts. I’m going to publish this unfinished, as is, because hey, I get an internet point and also there’s something silly about it.

Open on me, squawking about my fool-proof, follow-through process like I just got tablets from G-d. Smash cut to finding the posts months later, unfinished, in a drafts folder.

I’ve always found myself to get very far on projects when I’m on airplanes. There’s a few factors that play into it. Lots of coffee during travelling. It’s hard to move. No one wants to talk on airplanes. Little to no wi-fi. What do they have in common? They minimize distraction. They maximize focus.

Focus is hard. Staying on task is difficult. Right now, I’m fighting the urge to switch to facebook or check work email or a number of other easy ways to feel good or grab a false sense of productive.

I’ve been trying a new way of writing. When I have around 30 minutes before a meeting/scheduled event, I write a blog post. At the end of the 30 minutes I must either publish it or I throw it away.

I want to avoid putting the post in a giant pile of drafts. I think I might finish them some day, but I’ll never get to it. It just becomes a point of stress. I can trust that writing these words and working them through the ol’ nervous system has some sort of cumulative approach. That it some ways it makes me a better writer and thinker.

This post has been meandering like crazy. I’ve got 7 minutes left, and I’m gonna start cutting. Focus the post. Cut down on the distractions. Find the single thing I’d like to say and say it. It’s so hard.

I don’t like email. I don’t want it. There’s a time and place for it, I will admit. But it’s a terribly impersonal way to live. There’s been more than one time where I’ve gotten heated at an email because

I’m just terrible at this sort of thing. But what is it? Emailing word documents and updating JIRA tickets is often passed off as communication and organization. I reject that. It’s information chaff spit out to the ether. There’s not confirmation.

I’m so tempted to check my email as the first thing in the morning. It’s easy to open. It gives a small rush because ‘hey! a person in the universe wants to communicate with me!’ And it provides

Authors note:

I titled the post ‘Focus’ for god sakes.