Singular Focus. Scaling Habits

Is more focus really the recipe for success?

What does singular focus mean? And how can you regain it after a tough week, hard month or prolonged burnout?

I’m what you can call an early digital adopter. I jumped into enjoying online/digital/social media life early on — getting a blog started that essentially gave me the tools and platform to make a name for myself in the health innovation landscape. After years of being immersed in the rapidly evolving timeline of social media, tech’s meteoric rise, data manipulation/aggregation, “breaking” news and the cult of productivity — I’ve realized that I’ve become fatigued.

And not just in the sense of being physically tired but in the way that it has become increasingly difficult to focus on one task, complete it and move onto the next without significant friction and/or resistance. It’s funny — you’d think that it would be easier after all these years to have a consistent set of habits where this isn’t much of a problem. At least I think should. In other words, connecting the dots from intention to action to completion is out of whack. I’m actually thoroughly impressed with myself for sitting down and writing this (after scribbling it in a new journal I got just for getting back to a writing practice).

You see, I think that my own abilities to see context in everything — something that once served me really well during the height of The Digital Transformation, has now been used so much that now analysis paralysis is almost a default state. That’s weird to admit out loud.

Don’t get me wrong — I still do a lot of things well and can execute, but the paralysis seems to now increase in relation to the immediacy of consequences of whatever task is at hand. For example, I’ve needed to clean the floor in the kitchen for weeks now. I have the required tools to do it. But, is my floor going to one day open up and swallow me in a fit of dirty rage? Probably not. Am I able to still walk on it? Yep.

I figure there are two things going on:

1. willpower is shot in a lot of ways (burnout)

2. I think that I’ll have a burst of cleaning/productive energy at a time in the future (never comes)

So with all this stream of consciousness, I understand even more the concept of making your bed in the mornings as the first task you get done and why creating a cascade of action by telling your brain that if I can do this, I might as well keep the pattern of successful action going. Habits!

And it trickles upward. At least that is what I’m telling myself right now. I’ll probably re-read James Clear’s Atomic Habits again with a different perspective now — not just from a productivity lens but from a mental health lens.

So as I finish up here, I’ve come to the conclusion that it really isn’t about singular focus but about momentum-creating habits that almost compel you to keep going.

Who’s trying this out with me?

p.s. this article on WIRED about issues that might happen post-Information Age made me laugh in reflection on what I’ve been experiencing.