We live in a society that expects us to be experts in many things. Most jobs require a base of knowledge in addition to computer skills. It is a standard that even young children know how to read and do at least simple math tasks. Women may not need to sew, but they are still expected to cook, and not just cook, but cook well and elaborately as we see over and over again on TV. In this niche society it is not out of the ordinary for someone to know A LOT about some small detail of pop culture. In a way we are expected to be the ultimate Renaissance people who are educated in many subjects and maybe even masters in more than one.
This is in direct conflict with what we see everyday: people who are really good at one thing. Those people are focusing on their art or talent and honing it to perfection. That isn’t to say they aren’t good at anything else, but that one thing is their focus. How do you manage to pick the one thing you want to be good at long enough to get good at it? If you are interested in many things are you doomed to mediocrity in all of them? Or do you follow my mom’s advice, which was pick the first thing and do that, then pick the next. She used that as career advice as well.
Are the other random issues in our lives keeping us from excelling? I was thinking about this today when I realized that if I stopped doing a lot of extraneous things I would have a lot of extra time. Now some of those things I think I could truly drop, but others relieve stress or create joy in my life and those are things I need. At the same time I think I never learned how to have real, complete focus on one thing. So here’s my new plan to create focus:
Not only will I dedicate a period of time (like my hour a day writing), but I will dedicate a space. No matter how small, I think I need to go to the same physical space each day in order to create a sense of “being at work” for that period of time.
I need a series of mini goals, like steps, in order to give myself a feeling of accomplishment and maintain motivation. I think in the past my goals have been too big and daunting.
I’m also going to allow myself time off without guilt. I don’t mean huge blocks of time, but I know that I often spend my goof off time thinking that I should be doing something productive. That just ruins the goof off time and I’m still not getting anything done!
HourADayWriter 