By Jaime Hollander
How to find focus to be more productive
When I was young I couldn’t just have an interest. It needed to be a bright, burning, all-consuming passion. My grandmother gifted me a few old porcelain figures and, for a period of time, my passion became finding and acquiring more admittedly hideous porcelain figures to align and realign along my bookshelves. A teacher said she loved poetry I’d submitted for a class assignment, so I took to carrying a soft-bound notebook, ready to superficially reflect on the waves and the sky and the chirping birds—you know, things poets write about.
I biked.
I sketched.
I collected everything from stickers to stamps to old coins to old books.
I ran fundraisers. I ran 5Ks. I ran committees that wrote letters and rang doorbells and canvassed campuses.
Then, eventually, I just didn’t.
When I was so deeply immersed in the passion of the week, it was hard to see anything else. I fell in love and fell in love hard—this was my journey, this was my story, this was my light. Until it wasn’t. Porcelain figurines got dropped at Goodwill. I laugh at the ridiculous tween musings in those poetry journals.
When Focus Powers Passion
Looking back, I usually felt a little embarrassed when I moved from one all-in project to the next — like I’d failed or let myself get too caught up in something that evolved into something that seemed so trivial. What was actually evolving was a pattern of laser-focus. It wasn’t the permanence of having the hobby or the status of being in charge, it was the path from “interest sparked” to “mission accomplished” that was so appealing.
And I know I’m not alone in this feeling. I’ve talked to several entrepreneurs who’ve reflected on often long-term youthful passions. They were Division I athletes, accomplished gymnasts, cellists, linguists. Most, though, didn’t continue on that path, though.
One entrepreneur, a former pro baseball player, told me he realized he didn’t like baseball in high school, but he never quit because he loved being all in on something. “And it might as well be something I’m good at, right?”
Another, a cellist turned nonprofit leader, said she never actually liked playing cello, but she liked being able to slip away and immerse herself in the solitude of it all.
“If I didn’t want to do something, suddenly ‘I have to practice!’” she says. “And no one questioned it because when I performed I really excelled, and people assumed it was this deep, deep passion of mine. I just really liked to be alone with my thoughts. Playing an instrument at that level gave me that escape.”
It’s a pattern they all shared to some extent. It’s one I immediately recognized in myself. No matter the collection or the commitment of the moment, I always found myself alone, music on, totally immersed in the moment. And I got things done.
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“The ability to focus, concentrate your body and your mind towards specific tasks will make you ultra productive,” writes Ivaylo Durmanski. “There is no doubt of that.” The hard part, he says, “is actually doing it. Clearing your mind from all the thoughts that are knocking, waiting for your attention.”
I could spend hours organizing admittedly-creepy porcelain figures or training three-times daily for a last-minute 5K decades ago because I didn’t have the emotional and sensory distractions. I could hunker down, turn down the noise and just do or create or be. It’s harder now, but it’s not impossible.
I don’t believe the laser-focus ever leaves you. I think it becomes more high-stakes, and that is what makes it harder to stay the course without second-guessing, over-thinking, or creating unnecessary stress. But while I’ll never get back to the place where I can fully immerse myself in whatever seems intriguing at the moment, I can tap into some of the learnings from those all-in moments when I need to really dig in and focus.
1. Break the day into short sprints. While I’d love to hole up and just work, with the rings and dings and endless asks, shutting it all off for two or three hours is a more doable—and more comfortable—ask. And the reality? There’a a lot you can accomplish in a few hours—an uninterrupted hour, even. Just make sure that time is totally uninterrupted.
2. Know when focus is the issue… Unless I’m ON, I’m totally OFF at night—so why push, just to produce sub-par work, or to wind up spending hours falling down a YouTube rabbit hole? I’m great in the morning. An hour of early morning time almost always beats two or three of PM time.
Know yourself, know when you’re most productive and harness that time. And after five or so minutes if you aren’t moving forward, move on and carve out your interruption-free time later. You can’t force “the zone.”
3. Just start. And speaking of “the zone,” sometimes you just need to take a breath and create. Write a crappy first paragraph and keep going. Map out the presentation, then scrap it. Just do something—momentum is incredibly powerful when it comes to accomplishing goals.
4. Learn to love the focus. It’s easier to sink into things if we genuinely like them. So learn to love the focus. Learn to love the feeling of accomplishment—the blog posts you publish, the grant money that trickles in or whatever surprise and delight comes from the work you produce. If you can get there, it becomes less about the task and more about those moments of pure focus.
Again, I’ll never get back to the place when I could—or, really, should—be so all-in on things, channeling that level of focus can help overcome hurdles and more readily achieve your goals. For me, it’s the simplest way to just get it done, whether it’s a true passion or a project that’s been lingering on the list a little too long.
