Focus

One thing I have always had a fun time with is focusing and completing a project. There are so many things to do in a day, and I am fascinated by so much, that it can be difficult to stay focused on the task at hand. There are also distractions of things that I need to accomplish, like eating and exercising. Also, the more time I spend on something the more familiar it becomes. This can lead to boredom or the existential threat of why-am-I-wasting-time-on-this?

I read Getting Things Done in 2003. Its a self-help/productivity book that creates a folder system and blah blah blah. There is one principle that the book did give me: the 2 minute rule. (I think 7 habits also has something similar but that book took way too long to get to the point.)

The 2 minute rule says that if a task can be accomplished in 2 minutes or less, then you should drop everything and complete that task. This helps me just get little things done, and it also helps me break things down to smaller tasks. The benefit of this process is that you get the little things done. You also break up the big hairy things that may be intimidating, into manageable tasks.

I should probably revisit that book and see what else I might glean from it. There is a good chance I have changed since then. Perhaps I have matured more, yikes. I recall there being a system of folders or something.

Speaking of focus, this though process led me down a rabbit hole of remembering 2003. Remember when the US invaded Iraq cause of bullshit? Anyway that was happening, but also the Web was rebounding from the dot com sugar high and huge crash. I was working at a little domain and hosting company called GoDaddy and trying to get focused. Around then I learned of Boing Boing, Merlin Mann, Flickr, RSS, podcasts, and Jagerbombs?

What a quaint time that was.