What Do you Pay Attention To?

“Your life is the sum total of what you pay attention to” was the way Ezra Klein started a recent podcast.  I had to rewind a few times to really hear that because… yep…  I wasn’t quite paying attention.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about focus lately - both because it is something that comes up a lot for my clients, and because it is something that comes up for me personally. 

As an entrepreneur myself, when I’m not coaching, I need to decide how to spend my days. Do I work on my website? What about this project… or… what’s new in the feed since I last checked… 2.5 minutes ago?  There is a real cost to letting my focus slip and I’m ashamed to say it happens much more than I’d like it to. Sometimes I’m able to catch myself, and other days I blink and the day is gone.

For my clients - focus is a question that we talk about at different altitudes.  From, “what am I going to get done after we hang up the phone today?” to, “what are my goals or intentions for the year?”  

For founders, focus is one of their most precious resources - and one of the hardest to channel given the inherent swiss army knife role founders play. And yet, relentless focus is often cited as a key ingredient for success, especially for young startups looking to find and capitalize on product market fit. 

For leaders working inside of more established companies, focus can be a matter of sinking or swimming. With the barrage of emails, slack messages and meetings, finding time just to focus on what to focus on can be a challenge. And yet what a leader focuses on can make the difference between driving big results and frustrating stagnation. 

I certainly don’t have any magic solutions to this problem of focus, but I do know it’s something that matters. And I am encouraged by the work of Johan Hari, who Ezra Klien recently interviewed. 

A few things I took away from the conversation that might be helpful starting places:

The ability to focus doesn’t just come from exercising “will power” or not. In fact it is related more to our overall health than we may realize - from how we sleep, to what we eat, and how we manage our stress levels.  

The pandemic has impacted our ability to focus because our minds have been in a constant state of “high alert” which biologically causes us to scan for danger - something that works against our ability to focus deeply. 

I was quite shocked at one finding Hari mentioned - that once we are distracted from a focus (say because we looked at text) it takes us on average 23 minutes to get back to the level of focus we had before.  

Hari also mentioned that daydreaming is not actually just another way of being distracted, rather daydreaming can have tremendous benefits for synthesizing ideas and solving problems creatively. These days though - we go from one distraction to another - sometimes not allowing ourselves to be alone with our thoughts.  

How do you manage your attention and focus? What tools have worked for you?