The Focus Manual

Work in progress.

My rules and routines I try to follow to stay more focused on things that matter to me.

This page started as a blog post and experiment.

Organizing and prioritizing tasks

Probably the most important: what to work on.

• 1 main priority and 1 secondary for:
  • the year
  • the month
  • the week
• Follow the 123 method: 1 important task, 2 urgent, 3 maintenance
  • Write down the tasks and check them off. Every day

Phone

• Only allow critical notifications
  • The wast majority of notifications are not in this category. It is okay to miss out on stuff once in a while
• Always keep the phone on ‘do not disturb’ unless you are expecting an important message
  • You can allow important contacts to be able to disturb you via text/call
• Turn off internet connection in the evening and keep it off overnight
• Put your phone away when not using it
  • At work, keep it in your bag
  • At home, keep it in a designated place (where you can’t see it)

Smart watch

• No phone notifications on your watch. The phone is intrusive enough as it is.

Work

You have more control over your environment when working from home. The days you work from home are for focus. The days you are in the office are for collaboration.

• Book big blocks of time for focus and protect them
  • If someone books on top, ask to move the meeting
• Turn off Teams (chat program) and any other distractions when you are in a focus block
  • It is okay if you miss a few messages or don’t reply right away. Deep work is more important than always being available.
• Check mail and teams only a few times a day (outside focus blocks)
• Don’t expect deep focus when at the office. Enjoy the company and collaboration instead.
  • Do less demanding tasks and chores these days (it is good to recover a bit as well, not every day can be full on intense focus)
  • Trying to do deep work when at the office is a recipe for disaster: you will drain your energy and not achieve much.

Rest & work limits

• Work less but more intense hours
• If you are unable to focus, don’t try to force it. Rest and come back later
• Don’t linger at the office for no reason
  • If you don’t have energy/time to start something new, just go home instead
• Embrace varying intensity and duration. Some periods are full of flow and deep work. Others not so much. Be okay with this and rest when flow isn’t there.

Email

• Check once a day at most
• Only open if you have time to go through the emails and decide what to do with them. Don’t just check and try to remember what to do later.

Stock/crypto market & personal finance

• Don’t check it every day. The daily information does not provide you any value as all your investments are long term.

Social media

Just don’t. The benefits do not outweigh the downsides.

YouTube is okay if you listen to music or if you have a clear purpose for watching something — and even then, be careful not to continue watching after you have achieved what you set out to do.

Twitch is a big time sink if you let it. Only watch when you have decided beforehand you want some zombie time.

Information intake

• You are what you consume — be careful what you take in and remember to fuel your motivation with good content that aligns with your goals.

Staying up to date

You don’t need to be in the loop and updated every hour of the day. Most news you don’t even need to follow daily. Wait a bit and you can get a quick (and more accurate) summary when things have settled. That is if the news is even important in the first place — most of the time it isn’t.

• You have limited time and energy. Most of what is happening in the world does not concern you directly and you can’t do anything about it
• Limit your aperture to things within your scope of concerns
• If something is important it will find a way to you

Limit

• There are more interesting things in the world than you can ever explore.
• When you go broad it reduces your time/energy for going deep. Exploring new topics is fine — but do so consciously. Don’t just follow because it is the ‘New Hot Thing’.

Newsletters & podcasts

• Most newsletters and podcasts lean more towards processed food than vegetables: enjoyable to consume but you don’t get much smarter.
• A bit of enjoyable reading/listening is fine. But know this isn’t learning. This is entertainment.

Blogs

• Blogs are great. The good ones are more like eating your vegetables (although not quite there — learning new things is hard and does not feel good.).

Sleep

• Respect your sleep schedule. Keep it consistent
  • Also on weekends
• No screens before bed (~ 2 hours)
• Dim lights in the evening
• No coffee after 14:00

Late afternoon / early evening

This time of day has eluded me for a long time. I often reach this point after a day of work and a bit of exercise. And then what? I often still have a few (minor) chores to do but my energy levels are questionable. And I also want to spend a bit of time online reading blog posts, checking mail, etc. (mostly for entertainment value).

Late afternoon / early evening is for easy chores and easy online reading.

• Do less demanding stuff:
  • Remaining chores (only easy ones - if hard ones are left, skip for tomorrow)
  • Check email
  • Newsletters / blog posts / podcasts
  • Plan next day