7 min read
Attention problems, not taking actions
TL;DR: A personal reflection on struggling with focus and productivity, introducing a simple protocol to rebuild focus through deep work sessions and better daily planning.
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TL;DR: A personal reflection on struggling with focus and productivity, introducing a simple protocol to rebuild focus through deep work sessions and better daily planning.
Another month passed by, without anything to show for. I wrote a blog post in February, Building Fastlane Wealth, as a Slowlane success in which I claimed:
I will start a real business. Not a freelancer, one person show business.
What actions have I taken? None. But why? And what does this cause? I got very got at complaining about stuff, and saying things but not actually taking any actions, which leads to me loosing my self-respect.
Back in February I wrote a post about my "Fastlane" plans. What have I done so far? Nothing. Nothing happened. Again. Maybe I am a little hard on myself, but this is my way of talking to myself. I'm certainly not good enough. I have lost my self-respect.
I am content with many aspects of my life, but business, health and fitness have not been held to my previous standards, which is causing internal conflict.
My thoughts are literally everywhere, I find it hard to focus on one thing. This is a habit I have built myself over the last few months, even when I was still in Germany. Since I did not enjoy the work I did, I tended to distract myself very often. Watch YouTube videos during the day, answer WhatsApp messages as soon as they arrived, scrolling through Instagram or reading useless stuff on X.com.
Without a clear intention of where I want to go, I'm heading nowhere really. Surely this could only be a short phase of my life, during all the circumstances that I am currently in, and I kind of setup myself for this misery, but I am also the one that can get me out of this misery.
It seems to me that I'm right now at a stage where I just choose to be a "Wantrepreneur". I have fantasies, but don't take any actions.
What have I done in retrospect this month?
What have I not done this month?
This month has definitely focused more on the social aspects of my life. And they did made me feel good in a way, certainly it has been relaxing as well, but there is always this thought in the back of my mind that I have to do more work. That I gotta be more productive.
What would actions be that actually lead to something? Actions that would help me find a little more peace, and fulfillment in my life?
My intent, my why, for writing this today has been a YouTube video yesterday by Hamza, a YouTuber that has not shown up in my feed for a very long time. This does make me question my personal goal setting, and my personal ideal life. All of my basic needs are currently met. I have love, I have food, I have fun, community and a sense of security. Why am I even striving for more?
I don't need to. I don't need to build a business. Nor do I need to do any of my goal setting. But I like to do so, maybe because I get validated and social proof from other people, or because I envision a different, more rich kind of lifestyle, but would that lifestyle change a lot?
A lot of my views are shaped by YouTubers and other external factors. A lot of self-improvement books, self-improvement gurus and what else.
Which goals are even my own creation? Something I got to figure out in the long term.
The only thing that will actually help is to take action. I still have the problem, that don't have a "real problem" to work on. There are a lot of ideas, and things I could work on, but none of them seem to be a real priority to me as of now.
Because I do tend to overwhelm myself by setting to many goals, and trying to progress everything at once, like I wrote in my post about the goal setting framework Big Goals And Dream Chains, I am going to do things differently, by focusing the next 30 days on a really small habit:
Building up my focus again.
I know that one superpower is the ability to do deep-work. Many years ago I read and listened to Deep Work by Cal Newport.
One of the key habits is to build up ones focus. I know a really simple protocol that works for me:
Doing 1-2 blocks of focused work each day increased my output tremendously whenever I did it.
In order to know what to work on during your focused work blocks, set yourself up the day before. Think and plan the next day, the night before. Create tasks and schedule events in your calendar if needed.
Instead of eating and snacking too much throughout the day, do regular meals, with no snacking in between. I don't have to do intermittent fasting, but spiking my blood sugar all the time, might not be the best thing for my longevity and focus. This already starts at the grocery store. Instead of buying things I can snack easily on like fruits, ready-made meat and bread, I am going to buy stuff that needs to be cooked only.