The Weave of Life
How I best braid together the areas of my life so as to focus my attention and energy rather than disperse it?
As a solopreneur, I work from home. Without the strictures of external deadlines or authority, I can waste hours needlessly reading my Facebook feed or keeping up with the news. I look up two hours later, having done nothing. Or I sit down to work, but it still seems unproductive because it all feels like a slog.
I think focus is critical in the life of a gamechanger. It’s probably what distinguishes a real gamechanger from an armchair dreamer. Your attention is probably the most precious resource you have.
The largest social media companies know this. They fight to capture how we conserve it, budget it, and spend it. You have to steward your attention and energy and be conscious of what you think about. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. Choosing what you think about, what you focus on, is the most basic form of agency, or self-determination you have.
“Attention is the rarest form of generosity.”
~ Simone Weil
On the immediate, day-to-day level, I have a problem focusing on my work. One technique I’ve learned recently is the Pomodoro, which is setting a timer to work for 25 minutes, taking a break, and resetting the timer for 25 minutes again. I’ve found that having a timer and planned breaks makes my life much more efficient. I actually FOCUS and PRODUCE for 25 straight minutes, knowing that I’m sprinting to a break. I’m writing on a Pomodoro right now! Once you figure out a way to direct your attention to what you want done, you’ll find that your energy isn’t dispersed on needless things.
At a bigger, lifelong level, focus is about knowing your priorities. Your time and attention are precious. If you pay attention to all things, you value nothing.
The Quaker testimony of Simplicity speaks to this. The Quakers believed that one ought to live a simple life in order to focus on what’s most important and ignore or play down what is least important. In their dress and material possessions, Quakers believed that having too much was a spiritual burden. Might the same thing be said in our professional and personal lives?
“Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center — a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It takes no time but occupies all our time.”
~ Thomas Kelly
Quakers described the process as eliminating the superfluities in your life. I think it is harder than that in modern life. In today’s world, we can find any number of things important. The task becomes less about eliminating the unimportant but rather distinguishing between what’s merely important and soul-shakingly important. Isn’t that the essence of inner wisdom?
Lastly, I think about storytelling. The stories we tell about our lives create a coherency about ourselves that create energy rather than disperse it. Once we discover the center of what interests us, we slowly weave together a narrative of what we find important. But that takes time and the bravery to explore. You need to do many things, follow interesting trails and find dead ends. And then gradually, we look back and see the path we’ve been walking.
For me, the story I tell about myself is deeply connected to my purpose. Years ago, after a painful layoff as a lawyer, I went to career counseling. After doing a battery of tests (the Meyers-Briggs, the Enneagram) and doing the skills inventory, and rewriting my resume, I wrote a mission statement for my life. I wrote:
“I want to help people learn and feel closer to their communities”
I didn’t even know what it meant at the time, but it’s remained true ever since. I’ve taught high schoolers, run a inter-governmental agency, managed energy efficiency programs, and now run gamechangersGO and Portland Underground Grad School. But helping people learn and feel closer to their communities has been the common thread. My mission statement, my purpose, has become the frame for all the events in my life, the central theme that everything weaves together. Once you find your purpose, all the important areas of your life come together in a coherent narrative. What you have to let of will too.
gamechangers, go deeper:
- Treat your Attention and focus as precious. Use pomodoros for daily focus
- Know what’s important and critically important.
- Tell a better story of their lives
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Have you heard of the gamechangersGO program?
Douglas Tsoi is a lawyer, educator, and co-founder of gamechangersGO. His mission in life is to help people learn and feel closer to their communities. He has taught global ethics at a Quaker boarding school, led city-level climate change policy, and helped choose Nobel Peace Prize winners. More recently he founded the Portland Underground Grad School, and writes for the Huffington Post. He co-founded gamechangersGO because “There’s nothing more important than people listening to and acting upon the inner call.”
