The Art of Focus

Focus

Focus combines prioritization with a singular goal or mission. Once the goal is clear, humans actually rarely mess up what to prioritize, they just fail to actually follow through on their prioritization.

And it is really easy to fall into the trap of distraction. “Once I do a, b, c, and d, everything will be perfect.” It won't.

Each task takes up decision making power or time. And it isn't additive either, it's exponential. If you have 1 or 2 things to focus on, then the decisions you're making are on the order of n or n². If you get to 4, 5, or m things to handle, the complexity of your vision increases exponentially.

Unless there is a capacity to correspondingly increase resources exponentially, focus is the most important thing someone can implement in their life. Every high-agency individual I've met exhibits incredible levels of discipline in their focus.

Why is focus an art?

Art is the expression of human creativity. And what's more humanly creative than deciding and prioritizing who or what is important to us? Focus can be personality-defining if done correctly.

Why don't I call it a science? After all, doesn't it involve rational prioritization of tasks?

Focus falls within the domain of art because it first requires us to define a vision aligned with our morals and values. This vision is unique to us. It first lives in our imagination — it's our job to bring this vision to life. It also requires an acute, yet subjective, judgement on what to keep and what to remove. Yes you can look at metrics to make this judgement, but humans are quite good at making these judgements from their gut.

Negative space

Once you've defined a vision, how do you decide what's actually important? A good analogy for this is sculpting. It often matters less about what you keep — it's about what you remove.

Focus is as much about removing as it is choosing

Michelangelo had to first create a vision of what he wanted the Pietà to look like, then carve away all the extra marble. This is the purest form of focus. Focus across other disciplines operates with a similar principle. By ruthlessly hacking off all distractions, we're left with only what remains — what matters.

If you're a software engineer, you might feel the dark side of distraction better than anyone. Yes I could build 100 features. Yes dark mode would look sexy on this website. Yes users might find Cmd+K functionality useful. But does the product even work? Do people even use your tool?

These distractions are often a Trojan horse. They're wrapped up in a pretty package that obscures their real malice. I don't mean to say that every unfocused opportunity is inherently bad — in fact they're often fairly good options. They're just robbing you of your time and increasing the complexity of your vision, which is bad in the long run.

Outliers

But look at all the things that Elon Musk does! He runs 5 companies!! Why can't I diversify my interests?

Yeah you can, but 1. you're not Elon Musk and 2. Elon Musk (PayPal) and Richard Branson (Virgin Records) started with an intense concentration on a single problem. If you want to focus on more, you need to start focusing on less. A narrow scope and ruthless prioritization opens up the resources for expanded focus. Until you have resources, time is not in your favor.

Compound effects

Similar to distractions, focus is also compounding. Think about the last time you were fixated on an achievable and well-defined goal. Everything seems to magically fall into place like pieces of a puzzle. If you're really focused on being able to move your bodyweight, all of a sudden you're doing calisthenics 3 days a week, eating beautifully-sculpted high-protein low-carb meal prep, and sleeping 8.5 hours a day. And you're NOT doing that one training program for a half-marathon.

Modern-day focus

Focus is harder than ever today. When prioritizing, you are making a decision, and that can be mentally taxing. Achieving focus requires you to constantly exert conscious effort.

It's easier to make no decision at all. And by refusing to make a decision, to choose one thing, you're opening yourself up to every possibility. That in itself is a prioritization, and it's almost always the wrong one.

Cheap dopamine hits have made it hard to make comprehensive decisions. I could exert mental effort in making a clear decision to reduce and prioritize scope, or I could scroll through TikTok for 4 hours. Being bored every once in a while helps us reset this decision-making capacity. We're forced to confront what matters if we don't have anything to distract us.

There are a billion ways to remove these distractions from our lives, so I won't go into detail on them here. But this is crucial for finding your focus.

Saying no

Good opportunities are in abundance. But not all good opportunities are created equal.

It's really important to learn how to say no to almost everything. This sounds dangerous at first glance — what if I miss something important?

First, you intuitively know what's actually important. Anything that comes along that fits into your mold of focus will be obvious once the vision is well-defined. Second, even if you miss this opportunity, it's often a rounding error if you're sufficiently focused. Some similar opportunity is going to come around, and you will make the right decision the next time around.

Why this all matters

There's something incredibly satisfying about aligning your actions with your vision, in that each action fits seamlessly into a bigger picture. What flow is to an individual task, focus is to your vision. Focus brings clarity and purpose to actions that might otherwise feel haphazard or disjointed.

So define a vision, cut out the noise, and get to work.