how to focus
I don’t actually know how to focus. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be thinking about how to focus so much. That being said, I’ve come to a few conclusions that I think are helpful in my quest to stop being so distracted, all the time.
I think the internet is bad for focus. This is covered a bit more eloquently in Cal Newport’s Deep Work, but I know that personally, the internet has shredded my ability to concentrate. I once heard checking your email described as ‘addictive as a slot machine’, since both slot machines and email have a ‘variable interval reinforcement schedule’, "which has been established as the way to train in the strongest habits. This means that rather than reward an action every time it is performed, you reward it sometimes, but not in a predictable way. So with email, usually when I check it there is nothing interesting, but every so often there's something wonderful - an invite out, or maybe some juicy gossip - and I get a reward." This is enough to make it difficult for us to resist checking email, even when we've only just looked.”
I think about this a lot, usually when I’m checking my email for the 50th time in a day. There are so many apps that are designed to keep us on them as much as possible, and at the end of the day, what is it actually doing for you? It’s a tough pill to swallow, because I love the internet. I like how accessible it makes the world, and it’s fun to use.
But I’m trying really hard to limit the amount of time I spend on it. I think that will help my creative practice as well - as great as it is to see all the incredible artists out there doing their thing, it’s also hard to come up with my own ideas when my brain is either: full of other people’s work, or discouraged because I’ll never be as good.
Trying to live my life off-screen is nice! Being bored is nice sometimes.
