Focus

I continued working on my own personal focus manual. And I spent the weekend thinking and reading about Essentialism.

This experiment has been absolutely wonderful. I'm still distracted and unable to focus at times, but the experiment as been a small 'reset' in my life. I have taken my goals much more seriously and as a result I feel so much better.

I feel like I am making actual progress - and that I am in charge of my life.

There are still lots of things to improve. And just keeping up the good foundation I built over the last two weeks will be hard. But I'm hopeful the progress I see - and the systems I have put in place - will help me stay on track. We'll see.

Other notes

• I have read way less newsletters than I usually do. And I'm fine.

I like reading niche newsletters about crypto, ai, money, tech, etc. But the last two weeks I have read way less than I usually do. I have also unsubscribed from a lot of the stuff I used to skim. So far I like the change. Daily newsletters are more entertainment than real learning so I want to treat them as such.

I'll still continue to follow a few newsletters. But I'll do it less intensely than before.

I have also cleaned up my RSS reader a bit so I'm now more focused on the few good blogs I really enjoy reading.

• Protecting time for focus at work is incredibly important.

Just yesterday I had a big block of time and it resulted in massive progress on a project. Other days are interrupted by meetings and other things and I get nothing important done (but somehow I'm more tired). My strategy is now to have some days where I protect my time aggressively and other days where I am much more available.

On days where I make myself available I no longer expect deep work - and I think this expectation is important. That way I'm not frustrated and can instead focus on collaboration and small chores/maintenance I skip on "deep work days".

• Knowing what to focus on is half the battle.

I have often been plagued by decision fatigue. My most productive time is the first few hours of the day. Just one hour of productive work here may set the tone for the rest of my day. But often I have found myself idly staring a my screen unable to decide what to work on. After a few minutes like this I end up browsing around doing nothing important.

If I instead have a task ready at hand and get started on it without too much thought, I'll more often than not do the work and even enjoy it. The key is to just get started. And that is much easier when I know what to work on. 123 planning from Essentialism has helped a lot in this regard (plan 1 important task, 2 urgent, 3 maintenance tasks for the day. I try to work on the important task in the morning.)

This experiment is still very exciting. I'm reading Stolen Focus and working on my 'Focus Manual'.

I have tried to avoid the worst distractions and habits since the start of this experiment and so far I'm liking it. I still get distracted but looking back I can see recent periods in my life where I was way more distracted than today.

Of course it is too early to tell if any of this actually helps me achieve more of my goals. But anecdotally I'm spending more time and energy on things that matter - at least it feels very much like that. We'll see.

The experiment has been good but the 7 days are pretty much up. Instead of ending it here I'll go for another 7 days. I have more work to do and this experiment feels like it has a lot of potential if I follow through.

Enjoying the experiment!

I've started working on a 'Focus Manual' for myself. A page listing the rules and routines I would like to follow.

Creating the page is fun but I expect following it will be much harder. It is so easy to set big goals - much harder to follow through on them. But I imagine I'll at least push myself in a better direction and if the manual is useful I'll keep working on it to adjust as I progress.

Today I removed a couple of notification permissions from my phone. I'm wondering if I need a more aggressive approach? Removing a notification here and there is good but it may not be enough - they have a tendency to creep back.

I had a good day at work with large blocks of focus. And as a result I felt good about my work.

Afternoon and evening is TBD. The clock is 17 as I write this so we'll see.

Some notes on reading online

Today I have a flood of incoming content: RSS reader with 200 unread articles and something like 10 daily email newsletters.

I like many of these sources but it's too much. And I'm not really getting that much smarter by consuming all these daily updates.

It feels overwhelming.

I need to change something here.