stay focused

Looking over the past three months of my calendar, there are many times where I’ve been unfocused. It feels like this calendar is the only thing holding me together, and preventing me from diffusing apart into some oblivious cloud of distraction. I need to find some way of SCHEDULING FOCUS, not just recording the times when I’ve been unfocused.

Situations where not focusing has cost me, put me at risk or caused trouble in the past 3 months:
• paying $30 transfer free for credit card
• overdrawing checking account 3 TIMES for a total of $87 in fees
• overpaying for groceries
• mailing a letter, then walking into traffic since I thought the light would still be green from when I last looked
• not getting work done on time, since I misjudged the date that my supervisor would be back from vacation by A WEEK
• repeatedly burning foods in toaster oven at work by setting a longer time than necessary
• failing to leave train at correct subway station, adding extra time to trip
• boarding incorrect subway line, adding extra time to trip
• mistakenly purchasing “baby eggplant” at much higher price than “regular eggplant”
• failing to leave early enough for an event, then getting lost, only to arrive at meeting place with nobody else there
• forgetting to unlock office door in the morning after changing out of winter long underwear, and making coworker suspicious of why I had locked it
• innumerable errors at work, requiring time-consuming corrections

Staying focused means something specific to me. It means being able to do only ONE task at a time, for a predetermined period of time. In other words, it means devoting all of my thoughts to only one thing. While this shows up as a focused activity, the most important segment is the mental choice to only do one thing. There are massive benefits to staying focused. It leaves me time to do the things I need, with time left over for exploring and having random fun.

Not focusing costs dearly. It eats up all my time with random thoughts and activities that I don’t need to do, and didn’t want when looking back at them. It can also put me in physical danger when riding my bike or cooking. If I’m doing anything related to money or investing, it can set me back weeks or years in a few moments. Basically, focus is essential.

The tricky part is being focused WHILE I need to be focused. Its easy to think of how I could have been focused a while ago rather than on the material at hand. And that isn’t actually focusing. Reality changes so fast, and I need to keep up with it. Planning helps, since it places some expectations ahead, when before there would be only a baffling barrage of random activities to scurry towards.