How to focus like a monk, 101 additional advices, thinking tools and more
4 new ideas on smarter living
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How to focus like a monk: 8 ways to develop impeccable attention skills
There is one thing monks deeply understand: where the mind goes, so goes the body… and everything else. Monks are great at shutting out the world’s noise to find their centre and get in touch with their true selves.
Think about how a monk lives:
They wake up early in the morning to pray and meditate.
They spend most of their time reading scriptures and learning from wise teachers.
They live an effortless life, including few possessions and an almost entirely vegan diet.
We can learn a lot from monks, but today we will be learning how to hone our focus skills. Everyone suffers from attention deficit these days. But there is a better way to live: learning to concentrate on the few essentials and mastering your ability to do things one at a time. When you focus on the right things, your life will become more peaceful and stress-free.
The truth is, most of us are suffering from an epidemic of distraction. We are constantly bombarded with new information, notifications, and advertisements. There are so many distractions in the modern world that it’s almost impossible to stay focused.
In fact, statistics show that the “average person is distracted or interrupted every 40 seconds when working in front of a computer.” That’s insane.
This means that the average worker might be distracted hundreds of times on any given day. It’s no wonder that the ability to focus has become such a rare commodity. For some people, focusing on one task at a time is second nature. For others, focusing is more of a struggle.
The question is: how do you protect yourself from the many internal and external distractions when you want to get things done? The true measure of success is how long you starve your distractions to get more things done.
There are ways you can drown out the noise of everyday stressors and refocus your brain to work at peak performance again.
The secret lies in understanding how distraction affects you, identifying when you need to refocus and developing strategies for regaining your focus again quickly.
Everyone has different things that work for them, but some general principles can apply to anyone who wants to stay focused and be more productive.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to staying focused and getting stuff done, but there are a number of habits that can help you achieve impeccable focus.
Train your brain to ignore distractions. It’s easier said than done. Monks train for years to master the human mind. You can start by planning time alone to think, get clarity, and practice mindfulness. Schedule distraction time to “give in to feed your distractions” for a few minutes at a time, and then when you start to do “focus work,” starve those distractions.
Schedule tasks around your energy level. Focus fluctuates. Everyone’s focus skill is different. You can measure how you work and do more of what’s working. “To understand your own ultradian rhythm, record your levels of focus, enthusiasm, and energy at the same times each day at hourly intervals,” writes Anthony Bartlett of Evernote. Knowledge of your focus level can help you work with your body to improve your skills.
Set realistic goals. It’s easy to start a new project or goal with the best of intentions. Still, it can be hard to stay motivated if you set yourself up for failure by making unrealistic expectations about how much you can get done in a given period of time. Instead of trying to do everything at once, focus on one or two tasks at a time and set realistic expectations for what you can accomplish in a given timeframe.
Strictly block off time for high-value tasks. If you’re having trouble staying focused, there’s a good chance that you’re always working on something new and jumping from task to task without taking any time to step back and look at the big picture. To avoid this problem, create dedicated time each day to work on the most essential tasks to get you closer to your larger goals.
For every task on your to-do list, set hyper-focus time for it. If you don’t take that time, there’s always a chance that something else will come up that will distract you. The more time you give yourself, the better chance you have of being productive.
Work in long stretches of an hour at most and take quality breaks between focused sessions. And most importantly, prepare your environment to work for you, not against you. Make it a habit to mute notifications, block distracting sites, or wear noise cancellation headphones before you dive into work mode. Take a break when you need one, and don’t stress if you have to start over. You can always keep trying!
Prep your environment for monk mode. External distractions (your phone, social media, websites, other people, or noises around you) can make it incredibly difficult to get things done. Minimise these distractions when you start deep work. Clear your desk, hide your phone and block sites when you want to focus. The right environment can reset your brain to focus on your task.
Get enough sleep. A lack of sleep can make it hard to stay focused, so make sure you’re getting enough rest each night to wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day ahead.
Food for thought
101 Additional Advices [Kevin Kelly]
• The best way to criticize something is to make something better.
• Admitting that “I don’t know” at least once a day will make you a better person.
• Forget trying to decide what your life’s destiny is. That’s too grand. Instead, just figure out what you should do in the next 2 years.
• Aim to be effective, but unpredictable. That is, you want to act in a way that AIs have trouble modeling or imitating. That makes you irreplaceable.
• Whenever you hug someone, be the last to let go.
• Don’t save up the good stuff (fancy wine, or china) for that rare occasion that will never happen; instead use them whenever you can.
Some Things I Think [Collab Fund]
Most beliefs are self-validating. Angry people look for problems and find them everywhere, happy people seek out smiles and find them everywhere, pessimists look for trouble and find it everywhere. Brains are good at filtering inputs to focus on what you want to believe.
Few traits are as attractive as humility, but few are as common as vanity.
Everyone wants to be lucky and to be admired, but no one admires a person for their luck.
The market is rational but investors play different games and those games look irrational to people playing a different game.
What the Science Actually Says About Unconscious Decision Making [The MIT Press Reader]
“A common argument for “going with your gut” or “sleeping on it” is the claim that if we keep deliberating on a decision, we might end up in a kind of analysis paralysis. The idea is that our conscious brain has capacity limitations: It can only hold in mind the magic number of seven (plus or minus two) pieces of information at a time, and thus is hopelessly hobbled when it comes to complex decisions.
Studies find that regardless of the mode of thought — conscious, unconscious, or immediate — the majority of participants chose the option predicted by summing up their subjective importance ratings.”
How anxiety became a catchall for every unpleasant emotion [Vox]
“People may mistake anxiety for stress. Stress is when you have too many demands and not enough resources, like time or money to outsource some responsibilities, Rosmarin says. “Anxiety often happens in the context of an abundance of resources,” he says. You may be getting enough sleep, have a supportive partner, and a job you love, for instance, but still spiral over would-be worst-case scenarios that may never materialize. Even fear can be confused with anxiety. Fear is in response to a concrete threat, whereas anxiety is triggered by an amorphous or future risk.”
3 ideas on smarter living
3 questions worth asking
‘In what ways might I be complicit in creating the conditions that I say I don’t want?’ This is a potent journal prompt or inquiry for self-exploration that often nudges us to take greater responsibility for the circumstances in our life.
“When we think about changing a habit, starting a new project, or taking on a new client, we often put ourselves under too much pressure. We feel like we must solve all the problems (ours, other people’s and the planet’s) at once. By asking ‘Does this give more to the world than it takes?’, we learn to be a little less hard on ourselves, while still striving for positive impact.
I recently found myself asking: ‘Is that your gut talking or your mind?’ I value my intuition quite a bit and under the lens of trying to listen better, this question helps me figure out when past experiences are hindering me from taking risks that I may be very well equipped to handle.
A quote worth repeating
‘Wherever you go, there you are.’ Hard to trace authorship, but easy to assign multiple meanings to this. My favourite two: (1) the idea that you simply cannot escape who you are, and (2) the notion that once you find yourself in a certain place, you should invest your whole heart in being present, in the moment.
Tools for life/career
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Thanks for reading!
Until next week,
Thomas
Medium | Thinking Toolbox | The Write Life | How to Live: Lessons in Stoicism
Postanly Weekly is now a reader-supported publication. To support my work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $7 per month or $40 for an entire year. With a modest yearly contribution you’re not only helping keep Postanly Weekly going, you also get free access to Thinking Toolbox (mental models for life) and Mental Wealth Toolbox (practical concepts for smarter decisions).
Thank you for all these small snippets and inspiration. I really want to start doing this now: "Whenever you hug someone, be the last to let go." And it would be so cool to someday meet a person who lives by the same rule and we just realise by awkwardly not letting go for wayyyyyyy too long.
Interesting article! The connection between focus and a "monk mode" mentality is intriguing. I especially liked the point about scheduling distractions and the importance of environment in boosting focus. Will definitely check out the Thinking Toolbox.