One of my new priorities in life is to practice and train my focus. Focus is a skill, and like all skills, focus is strengthened through deliberate training; this also means that focus atrophies when you neglect to practice it. Recently, I’ve found that my ability to maintain focused concentration — and as such, my ability to produce my best work — has diminished from what it was in my prime. After taking the time to read Cal Newport’s Deep Work (yet again), I have re-dedicated myself to rediscovering my previous focus through a variety of deliberate changes.
Limiting online news
A crucial part of maintaining focus is limiting the amount of information intake we experience, to allow for more thinking and analysis. Let’s face it: most of the information that we get from online sources is superfluous — only a very small subset of it actually provides value. As a result, I’ve reduced my information sources to the following:
Newsletters: Farnam Street, Brain Pickings, Zen Habits, Cal Newport
Traditional news: NY Times evening briefing
Sports: BleacherReport, ESPN
Podcasts: The Tim Ferriss Show, Jocko Podcast, College Info Geek, Data Skeptic
“Friend curation”: interesting articles and pieces sent to me by my trusted friends
By having all of my news information curated by trustworthy external sources, I mitigate the dangerous possibility of being sucked into the phenomena of “Internet surfing,” something that I’m sure we’ve all been through. At the same time, the mode of curation of all these news is in the form of daily or weekly delivery, which means that I can effectively “batch” my news consumption at predetermined times, so that it does not interfere with my work.
Reading more
With the extra time and focus that I have recouped from my life, I now invest it into reading great books. Reading helps me hone my focus, as well as broaden my mind and expose me to novel and exciting ideas. Reading is a sort of dialogue between the great thinkers of past and present and myself, one that is stimulating and invigorating. There’s something truly magical about immersing yourself into a great book, where you reach an almost higher state of being that is rarely achieved otherwise.
Turning off notifications
Perhaps the most important decision I have made: I have disabled all notifications for my phone, and my life has improved dramatically. I still check my messages at pre-determined times of day, and if something is truly urgent and requires my immediate attention, I am always reachable by phone. Turning off my notifications has eliminated one of the most detrimental features of the smartphone, and is something that I wish I had done earlier.