Before sitting down to write about the power of single tasking and the necessity of focus, I absolutely needed to clean my keyboard. 

In fact, I could continue productively procrastinating by hanging the art leaning against the wall after moving. I could even multitask and listen to a podcast at the same time. 

Distraction is easy. And rewarded. 

Our brains and biology reward noticing novelty and changes in our environment to do threat assessments.

Attention is a billion-dollar industry. Social norms, ads, and algorithms are all competing for a sliver of a finite pie - our attention - and so our corporate overlords try to attract/distract us. 

Digital communication systems send us a cascade of notifications, pings, dings, and dials into the social contract needs of responsiveness and ‘showing’ attention. Ignoring people means they might eject you from the safety of the group. And are you even working if you’re not available to thumbs up your coworkers’ slack messages and reply to that email in 2.3 seconds?

The default mode is dilution of our attention into meaningless chunks of half-assery spread so thin nothing gets accomplished and we’re just rearranging furniture on the Titanic. 

Most defaults are rarely strategic, nor an advantage for anyone involved. But defaults can be changed to amplify strategic focus. 

Because deciding how you focus your attention shifts the trajectory of your work and life. 

Single tasking requires effort, strategy, and decisions. And saying no. But the rewards for focus are rich and deciding your focus helps the ship navigate around icebergs easier. 

Consider the decisions you’ve made so far in life that have gotten you where you are now. 

The education you pursued, the field of study, the jobs and experiences you sought and found, the relationships you’ve built, and how you’ve allocated your money and time. 

This is all incredibly personal. Which means it’s also super vulnerable. Designing your life and directing your focus with intention means that you are responsible for actually doing the thing.

So, how might you shift your defaults and focus?

Here my approach to amplifying my focus:

I firmly believe that the best one is the one you actually use.

So, how might you actually focus? And most importantly, what is it all for?