On life and time

I want to avoid writing anything “Linkedin-ly” but on rare occasions some thoughts captivate my mind and I am compelled to write.

Background to this post is this. I am deliberately trying to learn and build some skills. One of the major hurdles is the overload of information. On top, the constant lure of “oh this too looks interesting”. It is super hard to not “click” and stay focused. Even if I want to learn one specific topic from a social media or learning platform, I need to physically stop myself from clicking other stuff which also looks useful. This spiral is super hard to control.

I did try various options – reading hard copies of articles/books, listening to focus music with noise cancelling headphones, closing all browser tabs, writing down while I learn etc etc. But I end up going astray automatically.

As a fan of mental models, I tried to think about this situation and how do I get out of it. Then quite randomly I stumbled upon this video. While I had seen this couple of times earlier, I could not relate to it till now.

But now that I am in a situation where I truly need to focus on something and I know there are other great ideas which are captivating me at the same time, I am starting to understand that the only way to truly focus is by saying no to things which you love*.

Essentially this is a two stage filter. In the first stage we shut down all the unwanted stuff – close apps, shut the door, put noice cancelling headphones, wake up early etc etc. But even then there are multiple streams of similar-and-useful-looking content. Ex: you want to learn writing good ChatGPT prompts but there are atleast a thousand good videos, tweets, pdfs, courses on this topic and each next thing looks better than the previous one. I guess many like me get stuck here, between the two filters. We assume, after going through the first filter, that we have done enough. But few pass the second filter where we shutdown everything else and focus on one thing irrespective of how great the other stuff looks like. Essentially you have to commit to the material on hand and forget the rest. The thought of “may be this other book has better information” needs to be controlled and negotiated. Only when you pass this second filter you are free and can focus with all your might.

As I write this, I can relate to other mental challenges that we often deal with – procrastination, prioritisation, getting things done etc and I believe that essentially all these mental hurdles have some very similar solutions. I will write more on this as I formulate my own thoughts better.

*Yes you may argue that you do not really love the other stuff which is preventing you from focusing on the one thing, but I hope you get the drift.