Focus - Leo Babauta [32]
Whatever your focus, take a closer look at it. What do you focus on that's absolutely essential, and what isn't as important? Figure out your top priorities, and also think about how much time you allocate to each of these focuses.
What are the possibilities of narrowing your focus? Of dropping some features or catering to a smaller group of customers or doing fewer things for fewer people? How hard would that be? What would need to be done to make that happen?
narrowing focus
Now that you've identified your top priorities, the hard part is done. Not that narrowing focus is always easy -- especially when you have team members or management involved who don't quite get it.
In that case, it'll take some convincing. Show them examples of companies or projects that excelled with a smaller focus, and the problems of too broad a focus.
Be unrelenting.
If you have control over your focus, and the focus of what you work on, you're lucky. Now it just takes some guts, and perhaps some time. You don't need to change everything overnight. That's the power of small changes -- you can slowly narrow your focus. Slowly do less, one thing at a time, and you'll see how it can transform your work.
When you drop one feature at a time, do one less type of service, do one fewer project at a time... it's not so hard. And the improvements that come with the smaller focus will encourage you to continue to simplify, until you've found the smallest focus that works for you.
4: focused reading and research
"A book is like a garden carried in the pocket."
– Chinese proverb
Focused reading is something that's becoming a rarer and rarer animal these days. We have a hard time reading even a single blog post if it's not a simple list or longer than a couple hundred words -- we'll skim, and then move on to the next post or email.
Our reading habits have changed because of the persistence and ubiquity of online distractions. We read shorter, faster, more frequently, but longer reading is dwindling. Focused reading is harder.
One effect is that we're reading fewer books and longer articles, and more blogs and shorter articles. Another effect is that any research we need to do is filled with distractions -- landmines when it comes to getting work done.
However, it's not impossible to read or do research with focus. Just harder.
how to read longer pieces without distractions
There are two keys to reading longer pieces or books: 1) clearing away everything else, and 2) shutting off the Internet.
Without those two things, you'll always have distractions. Even if you do manage to do those two things, the siren's call of messages and other updates are still tempting.
For reading longer articles or blog posts, I'll put the article/post in a separate window, without other tabs to distract me. I'll expand that window to cover my entire screen. And then I'll turn off the Internet, so nothing else calls while I read.
Then I just read, until I get to the end (or until I realize this article isn't worth my time). I don't switch to another window or program until I'm done.
There's something peaceful about this process. It's saying: I have nothing else to do but read this one thing. Nothing is going to interrupt me, and I can just focus on enjoying this reading.
Book reading is the same way. If you're reading a physical book, you need to put away your laptop and mobile devices, and shut everything off. Find a quiet place, and just read. If you're reading an ebook, clear away everything else but your ebook reader.
Then you settle into the reading, and enjoy it. Bask in the luxury of reading without distractions.
how to do the research necessary for focused creation
Research can be more of a challenge, because you need to be connected to find information, usually. You'll want to do Google searches and then follow links within the first batch of articles you find, and so on. The nature of research tends to require link-following.
Here's the