“It is incredibly easy to lose focus”

A friend told me this yesterday; it resonated a lot. It made me think about focus through the lens of inversion. There are a lot of tools and frameworks avaialable for people to maintain focus. But, “keeping focus” is like a goal that you’re always fighting against. It sounds obvious, but anytime you lose focus, you’ve lost in your battle to keep it. So it demotivates you, and makes you feel like distraction is a part of your identity versus something that you simply experience.

So, instead of trying to keep focus, just try to note when you’ve lost it. And when you do, bring it back to whatever you were working on last. The ability to note your distraction and come back to the task at hand is like a muscle - it will become stronger over time.

Over time, you will also understand the triggers that lead to distractive patterns. The best way to keep focus is then to avoid those triggers - something that is more actionable than simply trying to “keep focus”.