Lance´s last blog post: Don’t Worry, Be Happy

The two books complement each other rather nicely.

But now, I’m thinking that what really matters is that we set ourselves up for focus. Because we know that we are easily distracted, we need to turn off the distractions that are not doing us any good (TV, phone, instant messengers, Twitter, Plurk, other browser tabs, and so on…)

Naturally we cannot turn off our brains. But that might not be a problem, because the multitasking that originates from your own brain is most likely useful. If you come up with a new idea, following it a bit more might be a good idea.

Does this make any sense? :)

And I’m definitely going to read “Refuse to Choose”. No more new bullets in my BooksToRead list!

@Steve: Good point. I haven’t been watching TV for a year or so, and now I feel I wouldn’t even know how to make time for it in my daily schedule :)

But then again, I always seem to find time for surfing the web, so yep, I’m guilty as well. On the other hand, I believe it’s important to have some unproductive time as well – as long as you make sure you are aware that you’re relaxing and don’t try to “work”.

@Jetro: Yep, I’ve heard that being in the zone is amazing (did you check out Joshua’s post on Flow yet, it’s about the same topic)! I don’t think I’ve entered that zone many times, though. Sometimes when writing, I get close. But even then, there are the new ideas to check out that Dren mentions – always ready to break my focus.

@Dren: You know, I’m a lot like you. My focus is easily interrupted by different things I want to work on later when I have time. (Like now, while writing this comment, I just remembered that I need to send an email to someone…)

What I try to do to both focus and at the same time not forget my next ideas is that when I have another idea, I try to really quickly write it down. I try to do it so quickly that I don’t lose my focus. Doesn’t always work, and I’m not sure if it’s the correct thing to do (Barbara Sher, in her book “Refuse to Choose” offers a different idea: go with the new idea and then return to focus on your initial work again).

What do you think?

We all define “free time” or “extra time” differently. Is it the activities that don’t (directly?) bring us income? Or is that the time you spent in front of the TV or reading a book or the time spent with your family?

So far, I learned why it is difficult for me to focus my thoughts only one task, but what I am still trying to figure out is how to solve this issue. For example, while I’m working on a task there is a small zillion of thoughts flashing through my mind – I am generally thinking about “the things I should/could do after I’m done with the current task”. Since my thoughts go into details (of how am I going to tackle those (future) tasks) I always turn into writing them down.

Yes, I work with less efficiency. And yes, I am everything but focused.

But what happened to me when I tried to disregard all these “extra thoughts” and focus on my task or “single-task” is that after I was done with the work – I felt completely lost and “planless”. While the results were “much more perfect” and my time was much more efficiently spent, a gun pointed to my forehead could not make me remember all the things I “wanted to do after”. And in moments like those I tend to turn to “the simple over the important” things… And that’s how the “time after the task” gets less efficiently spent.

I still shape the definition of my “empty activities” and day by day I try to reduce them as much as possible…

I almost never give the answer that “I’m busy”. Whenever someone tells me that they’re way too busy, I always wonder what the heck they could possibly be doing to not have any extra time at all. In my mind, a person always has free time for things that are important to them. Perhaps this all relates to focus. I try to focus on what is required and drop the rest. I have some extremely talented friends of mine who are “always busy”, but always seem to have time to watch television. I always imagine what they could accomplish if they just concentrated on a few things. Great post!