To focus

Or not

During our last trip to Vegas, I talked to my friend Raquel and discussed the best ways to stay focused when working. She said she had a problem with being focused for a long time on one task and wanted me to write how I did it.

Fortunately, I have the same problem. I am very prone to distractions.

In this short newsletter, I want to write my strategy for getting things done and staying (relatively) focused.

I consider a few things regarding my work day or days in general.

One is my willpower to resist distractions.

Two is that I am quickly bored.

Three is that I want my days to be fun.

Four is that I want to feel like I have done good work so I can spend my evenings doing whatever I want, guilt-free.

One of my favourite quotes is - how you live your day is how you live your life. It means that every day counts, not some vague idea of a perfect future.

We got that out of the way, so let's get to the tactics.

I am a believer that willpower is like a battery. We start with a full one each morning and deplete it throughout the day. This means we need to organise the day to use things that matter.

Let's say I like to eat unhealthy food. If I'm on a diet, rather than using the willpower to stop munching, I will eliminate the unhealthy food from the house.

There is nothing there to resist.

Because we know that even with the strongest willpower, when evening comes, and we are depleted, we say, 'I deserve it’, 'I've done well today', 'it's nothing really, just a small bite.'

It's the same with distractions. It's so easy to—during a work task—get distracted by our mobile phones, social media, messaging apps etc.

So rather than using my willpower to resist that, I block everything.

On my mobile phone, I don't have any social media apps, only messaging apps, and I have all notifications off - not sounds or pop-ups. So I need to grab my phone, unlock it and then open my email, WhatsApp and so on to check if someone has messaged me. Because of all these steps, I don’t do it often.

I'm also guilty of checking various websites during my work - social media, news, and forums.

Therefore when I work, I usually enable an app called Cold Turkey that blocks all these websites. 

Often, out of habit, I visit Facebook or Twitter when the files are rendering, only for the app to block them. It reminds me that I am working and should not waste my time.

So we got the first one down - block the distractions.

Two and three are connected. I am quickly bored, and I want my days to be fun. When you read or listen to productivity gurus like Tim Ferris or the guy who wrote Flow and many others, they say, 'disable the distractions, do the tasks in blocks and focus 100% on them'. They cite studies that switching between tasks takes around 20 minutes to return to the groove. An example would be:

Monday - editing day

Tuesday - mixing day

Wednesday - scoring day

Etc.

I get bored quickly, so I need something else. I couldn’t do just one thing for the whole day. Therefore I switch between tasks very frequently.

I will do editing for an hour, and when I feel like I'm getting bored, I will jump to something else, and I will repeat the process throughout the day. After that, I may go back to editing - there are no rules.

I do what I want, remembering the deadlines and other commitments.

This ties to our last point - feeling productive. I use my diary to write down the tasks and cross them off. These could be bigger ones like 'edit episode 247' or small ones like 'email Anthony'. It doesn't matter as long as I get to cross them off. Then, at the end of my work day, I have a long list of things I have crossed off, and I feel proud of my achievements. As opposed to if I was editing the whole day and would cross one thing.

I can then spend my evenings reading, gaming or doing whatever guilt-free.

This system allows me to have exciting days, get the work done, stay relatively focused and then, at the end of the week, have many projects completed - because I've been chipping at them for a whole week.

I hope that helps Raquel!

PODCAST PRODUCER LATEST

Last week was all about Frankston Murders - the upcoming Casefile Presents podcast. I have finished draft three mixes, meaning the podcast is about 95% done. The following steps are as follows - I am waiting for pickups and will do further mixing and tweaks over the next week. I want to close the production on this project next Saturday.

Oh, and we still need to do the trailer and the ads.

YOUTUBE

We’ve uploaded a video on my production workflow and how it makes everyone in the team happy! We will be changing the thumbnail, so don’t mind this one.

I’ve also changed my profile picture, and we are working on a new banner which should be updated soon!

LEARNING

I’m so behind the school it’s ridiculous. The deadline for the next assignment (formative) is Monday, but I’ve decided to do it, so I will spend my weekend getting that done.

I am making a pastiche of Mozart/Haydn, three tracks for a fictional video game.

Our Youtube PTYA course with Ali Abdaal is starting soon, and we have already had a couple of calls with them. Both Q&A calls with Ali were helpful as I’m trying to focus my channel in one direction.

BOOKS

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. I am still reading the book, as it’s a long one. But I will be starting another one for my book club on Monday. Oathbringer is, in my opinion, a bit slower than (so far) my favourite, the Words of Radiance. It’s still good, though!

FUN

Carnival Row. We have a few episodes left as they try to tie up all the loose ends.

You. We have finished the season this week; it’s good and, as expected, turns stupidly dark near the end. I heard that Season 5 is in the works; let’s hope they don’t mess it up like Dexter.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you (hopefully!) next week!

Mike

https://mikemigas.com/

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