I lost my focus
If you have been following this blog for a long time, you may have noticed a recent drop in the quality of the content.
There is only one reason: I lost my focus.
To be honest, the currents events (pandemic, war) and, more particularly, how they are handled by the involved parties (media, politics) worry me a lot about the challenges ahead of us that are at least of the same magnitude.
So I'm currently questioning if I should fully enjoy my life now before the world collapses or nukes get fired, or if I should continue to invest in the future.
And this makes me feel lost. My acts are no longer aligned with my thoughts. I lost my focus.
But hope is not lost: "After the darkness will come the sun". So here is how I intend to get my focus back.
The goals
The first thing you need to do when you want to achieve something is to clearly define the outcomes.
What you want, and, more importantly, what you don't want
For me, it's simple, I have 2 goals for June (I work on 3 months rushes):
- Only work in the morning, and have the afternoon free to explore and learn from the world.
- Ship my secret project, which should have been released in February, but was delayed due to a too broad scope and lack of focus.
And I don't want to:
- Find a new job now.
- Party.
- Get drunk.
- Become a slave of my phone, again.
- Gain weight due to a sedentary life.
- Give a fxck about politics.
Eliminating distractions
When switching between tasks, residues of the previous tasks persist in our minds. This is why eliminating distractions and task switching should be priority number one when we want to focus.
For me, it's simple, I've added a rule in my adblocker to block Hacker News, so I can't visit it for 1 month.
I also took a subscription to a music streaming service, so I no longer have to visit YouTube's cocainesque home page, designed to hijack my brain, to listen to music.
And I have disabled all notifications from my phone. Before, notifications were already silent, but now I don't even receive them. I'll check my phone only once or twice a day. That's all.
Avoiding the relapse
I've never been addicted to smoking, but I know how hard it can be to quit this deadly habit.
Why? Because to change behavior, we need to change our routine, and our brain doesn't like that because it adapts to our routines.
When repeated, routines become literally hard-coded into our brain. So, the hardest thing is not to find focus or stop smoking for a few days but to replace the old habits and avoid the relapse after a few weeks/months.
I started to exercise every day. I start with 30 minutes, and if it's not enough, I'll gradually do more.
Also, I started to go to massage or read books when I feel too anxious or too exhausted to work, instead of mindlessly scorlling the web.
That's all.
I hope to share my achievements with you soon :)
