Now Is the Best Time to Reset Your Focus Skills

Confused. Dazed. Scatterbrained.

It can often feel frustrating to make up your mind to focus, but to feel unable to do so.

To set down a path of focus—to write a song, practice our instrument, work on a design—only to be offered a gleaming off-ramp in the form of a distraction from our phone.

It even happens to people trying to write a newsletter about focusing. My phone has buzzed 3 times since I started writing this newsletter.

Each notification from our phones is part of a habit-reward loop that promises a potential dopamine release for our brains.

We know that there is a war going on in the marketplace, and that our attention is the ultimate prize. Tech companies, advertising companies, even nonprofits and other creatives. All want to win the next second of our attention.

But I want to invite you to a different path. Now is the best time to disengage from our distracted networks of notifications and reengage your focus on what really matters.

This holiday season, make a plan to practice building the skill of focus in your creative life.

On Time

“Time,” Winston Churchill said, “is one thing that can never be retrieved. One may lose and regain friends. One may lose and regain money. Opportunity, once spurned, may come again. But the hours that are lost in idleness can never be brought back to be used in gainful pursuits.”

To be a creator—a musician, artist, writer—is to fight endlessly to protect your creative time.

Here, at the beginning of a new week, I want to share with you some quotes on time. Not to scare or shame you into hustling more. Not to stress you into productivity, but to offer you a moment of reflection.

To set your perspective.

"It is not enough to be busy,” Thoreau wrote; “so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”

Have a Sense of Urgency Today

A sense of urgency flows throughout the entries of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. He is constantly reminding himself to act. To stop delaying. To focus. To live.

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman…on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.” (2.5)

“Human life. Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain.” (2.17)

“Don’t make room for anything…[that] might lead you astray, tempt you off the road, and leave you unable to devote yourself completely to achieving the goodness that is uniquely yours.” (3.6)

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