Focus and blindness

By its very definition, when you focus on something you become blind to other things.

Your brain has limited bandwidth, limited attention. If you’re paying attention to one thing, you’re removing attention from something else. That’s just the way it works.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if you’re doing it intentionally. To practice an instrument well, it really helps to be able to “shut out the rest of the world” for a while.

When you’re having a great conversation with someone, it’s wonderful to give them your full attention.

Here’s the danger: Being a leader is all about the Big Balancing Act. You’re focused on profit. Then customer engagement. Then employee retention. Then quality.

It’s a big swarm, and can be overwhelming.

I’ve found that the best skill to develop is to be intentional about applying focus in one area, and for a little while, shutting out the others. Don’t worry, it’s quite likely that the other areas will come screaming back to you in a few minutes.

By doing this, you can become highly effective for a short period of time. You can have that great conversation. You can think through a difficult issue and maybe even come to a decision.

“But everything is connected!” Absolutely right. So the second skill is to figure out the fewest things to bring to attention right now. Perhaps there are just two or three dimensions which are really critical to focus on right now to figure out the right balance.

Not all 48 which are trying to grab your attention. Just the few.

There’s hope, my friend. This is a learnable skill.

This post was inspired by this amazing article from my friend Ariana Friedlander.