focus
Last modified on September 10, 2021
As usual, Andy Matuschak has some really striking notes on this topic.
In particular, I like his exhortations to get curious and get bored. Those two aren’t mutually exclusive, and in fact seem to go hand in hand.
Copying here some sane defaults that he lists (seems like a good support on my way to being intentional):
Partial list of practices meant to produce deliberateness, receptivity [16%]
TODO Wi-Fi defaults to off in the morning
TODO Consistency in My daily routine
TODO Meditation first thing in the morning
TODO Simple, familiar background music
TODO Lots of long walks, usually without audiobooks or podcasts
TODO My notes contain mostly my own words (Literature notes are secondary and separate)
TODO Weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual reflection and planning exercises
DONE Forest.app running on my phone while I work
DONE Twitter, Mail, etc are not installed on my phone
TODO Focus.app runs from 7AM to 5PM, blocking Mail, the Twitter timeline, distracting web sites, etc
Andy says: “I’m not sure this is a great practice: A rigid fixation on “focus” can harm creative work. The block ends in the evenings, so I tend to do my meandering then, but I don’t know if that’s too rigid.”