The Art of Focus, sharp as cheetah.

Focus I : The rare Art of Focus

Maximilian Franz
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

When it comes down to what we seek in life, it often converges towards the same thing. Despite the myriad of ways to get there, various ideologies to support it and plentiful traps on the way, we all seek happiness and fulfillment.

There is no recipe to achieve happiness and everyone has a different understanding of what makes him happy. However, there are some requirements that must be met, for someone to feel happiness or enjoyment.

One of them is a form of order in consciousness. When we enjoy a moment the objectives in our consciousness are clear, prioritized and we know on what to act and how. This is a feeling called Flow, a term coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, but we will get into the details of that later.

While it sounds obvious that a feeling of mental ease and clarity about oneself, one’s goals and joys is helpful to achieve happiness, many of us are still distracted the majority of the time. We are exposed to the external influences that scream for our attention and that conquer our consciousness. The exact opposite of Flow arises, which can be termed psychic entropy and which is certainly not enjoyable, but yet often the status quo of our mind, if we have no clear task set in front of us.

When you have a free second because you just finished an exercise or specific task at hand your mind is quick to search for distraction by opening Facebook or a by quick look on the smartphone, right?

As a student, you can certainly follow the example of studying. You’re sitting in the library, all your books open and ready, but you just can’t get down to actually do the work. You are bothered by thoughts popping up. Mainly worries, but also daydreams and all sorts of events from the outside. Suddenly, you realize that you are reading some random article you just stumbled across, not even really knowing how you got there.

Have you felt like that?

You are certainly not alone. All of us have these moments, because after all our mind seeks distraction. One could say it is a natural instinct to be aware of things around us as matter of security, but mainly it has to do with the way smart devices, social media and many articles are designed. They are designed for quick satisfaction by imposing a fake order in consciousness, not lasting development and joy through intrinsic structure and content.

What we are missing is the rare art of focus.

The Art of Focus does, however, not only apply to work and study. In fact, although these are materially desirable areas to employ extensive focus in order to gain rewards, the greatest benefits of Focus can be reaped where one does not expect them. In our relaxation and free time, in sports and play and most importantly in our social life.

Facing a world that is flooded with quick-fix distractions, increasing workloads and the necessity for greater creativity at work than ever, we found this to be a worthy topic to shed some light on. For we believe in the enormous human potential for enjoyment as well as material success, if the right processes are forged and fostered.

The Focus Series
This article is the first of a series that is based all around Focus. An essential art-form, we believe, that is too rarely practiced. Given the discrepancies and struggles we faced ourselves, we are going to present a multitude of practical methods to be at ease in a busy world.

Starting with the methods of deep work and little rituals around focus, we want to give you the tools to cope with your tasks at hand, while spending more meaningful time off and less time distracted.

The ProzessBasis

Furthermore, this Series is only the kick off for our project called ProzessBasis with which we will cover various topics out of the areas of self-development, management, psychology as well as philosophy. Initially, this works primary focus is for ourselves to spend more time learning, reading and structuring our thoughts. Therefore we are grateful for every single reader who joins us on this journey and even more for any kind of feedback.

PS: I recommend reading my own articles in english, since that is the language they are written in. Joshua, however, writes natively in german, so the english version is translated.

ProzessBasis

Wir, die ProzessBasis, das sind ein paar Studenten aus Karlsruhe. Hier teilen wir unsere Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen aus vielseitigen Richtungen der Persönlichkeitsentwicklung, Management und Philosophie. Mehr zu uns in unserem ‘Die ProzessBasis’ Artikel.

Maximilian Franz

Written by

Writing for @ProzessBasis on Self-Development, Management and Philosophy from own experiences and insights. Also proud member of @hackundsoehne.

ProzessBasis

Wir, die ProzessBasis, das sind ein paar Studenten aus Karlsruhe. Hier teilen wir unsere Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen aus vielseitigen Richtungen der Persönlichkeitsentwicklung, Management und Philosophie. Mehr zu uns in unserem ‘Die ProzessBasis’ Artikel.

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