focus

Whatever you do it's always connected to something else. You can't do anything in a vacuum.

Every system is made out of small pieces. And it's hard to focus on all those other pieces and dive deep into the one at the same time.

When getting your hands dirty it's best to focus on only that. Forget everything else around and just do whatever is at hand.

But on larger scale it's better to account all that is connected. To reflect how it affects everything around whatever you are doing.

Now that I have my more technical writing goals defined I also want my content to have more focus. I don't promise to stick to it all the time, but at least I try to have more consistent content instead of writing about random things.

Coming up with what I want to focus on wasn't hard after @melakovacs mentioned it: learning. After all, I do that all the time. I try to learn something new every day, so there should always be something to write about.

So far, when I have been writing these daily posts I have had only two things to focus on. Firstly, to write every day and make it a routine for me. Another things has been trying to improve my overall writing skills.

Over a thousand days streak pretty much tells that I have succeeded on the former goal rather well. As a side effect, it has also improved my ability to pick up any writing task and completely bypass the empty page problem.

It's a lot easier to focus on the hard problems. When you really need to put your mind into it there is nothing that can stop you. As long as you can break the problem into bite-sized pieces so it won't be overwhelming.

But all those easy things. Easy enough to think that you can have them done in no time. Things that don't even warrant a for planning.

There is so much to do it's tempting to try to do multiple things at once. Listening to music while reading or doing chores, reading the news while watching movies or shows and so on.

Why can't we focus on one thing at the time anymore? Why it feels we don't have time for everything and therefore need to do more than one thing at the time. 

And while we do those things, we don't concentrate on any of them. They just slip through and afterwards we have this false sense of accomplishment without a memory of what we just went through.

I have two things I need to focus at the moment. I can't do them both at the same time. And I want to focus on both of them.

But trying to do all this at the same time is impossible. When I try to focus on one I feel guilty not focusing on the other. And vice verse. I really need to make sure I have enough time reserved for them both and stick to it. Focus on only one thing at the time.

At work, I wear multiple hats. During the years those hats might have been changed, but the multitude of them have mostly remained constant. As I get rid of one, there is already a new one waiting for me to wear. I have my hands in many of our operational areas as well as in our internal development.

While I like it that I'm able to contribute in so many different areas sometimes I feel like I should focus more on fewer of them. I can't get deep enough in any of them while I try to keep myself up to date trying to remain relevant on all of them.