018: FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

Hey Freelance Friend,

You’ve set goals for 2024. Big ones.

It’s now November.

Christmas music is starting to play.

You realise you have around 6 weeks left and you haven’t quite gotten that big exciting thing done.

Why?

Focus is probably central to the struggles of getting things done.

Do you ever sit there trying to work and it feels like your brain is pulling you out of focus just to check your phone, to open YouTube or instagram, to go get a snack, or even to grab another coffee / tea?

Sorry to tell you, but your brain is addicted to cheap dopamine.

These days there is a focus epidemic.

Getting excited about that big new thing? Easy!

Planning and strategising and talking about that thing? More dopamine, easy!

Actually sitting down and doing the thing? Next week…

The thing is, next week never comes.

What if you were able to actually sit and focus for extended periods, can you imagine how much you would get done?

Well, in order to understand how to get there, we need to understand what is robbing us of our most precious commodity.

Your brain is rotting with the chemical equivalent of processed sugar:

Cheap dopamine.

This easy to get dopamine repeatedly signals to your brain that you have enough.

Dopamine is a reward chemical that has been hijacked by every big company you can think of and weaponised against us to push us towards consumption.

Consuming social media.

Consuming Calories.

It feels amazing in the short term, but the long term effects are frightening.

Why would you go and do something difficult for a long term potential reward (even if huge) when you can get the exact same artificial feeling of success by scrolling on social media.

Your brain just does not see the need to do this, so allocating vital brain resources (focus and attention) to such a seemingly useless task makes absolutely no sense.

So, how do we get out of this and fulfil our true Freelance potential?

You need to cut the crap.

You don’t need social media (even though your brain is coming up with its best excuse as to why you do right now…that’s addiction / dependency talking)

You don’t need those high calorie snacks.

You don’t need those other immediate gratification activities either.

Make a list of everything.

Cut it from your life.

Now.

You brain is telling you right now" “I would but…” “Yes but for this I need to…”

You don’t.

“Maybe I will just set a time limit on…”

No.

Get rid

……………….

Okay that was rough.

But we have a clean slate to build on now.

You now need to get clear on what it is you are doing.

You have your big goal, that’s amazing.

You probably have an idea of the big 4-5 things you need to do to get there…also great.

You now need to get extremely granular.

You need to know exactly what you will do next time you sit at your laptop.

There is so so so much to do in all kinds of areas.

You will get overwhelmed.

Your first item on the to-do list could even be” “Open laptop”

The next part could be:

“Open Chrome, go to GoDaddy, buy domain, close laptop, celebrate”

The vital step is closing that loop.

Knowing there is a clear start and end to your action is vital for focus.

That’s why the Pomodoro technique works so amazingly well for our brains.

Pomodoro just means work for 45 minutes and stop for 15

Why is this good?

Our brains recognise that they don’t need to allocate too many resources to things, and that there will be a break to recharge coming up.

Like running knowing you can rest every 1000 metres or so, you will find the whole thing much easier mentally.

It’s the same for your tasks throughout the day.

If your brain feels like the day is just one big 8 hour slog, it won’t want to engage and will pull you out of bouts of focus whenever it can (cup of tea anyone?)

Another way to promote continuous focus is the premise of momentum.

Measuring what you do as a Freelancer in hours worked is out, leave that at your old job.

Measure what you do in actions completed.

It’s an absolute game changer.

If you get to 1pm and you’ve ticked off 7 items on your to-do list, you are rolling.

You look at the to-do list, you make those big lovely ticks or check the boxes, guess what happens?

Your brain gets a nice dose of dopamine.

You get rewarded for actually doing something good.

Over time you train your brain to do those things, you get addicted to completing tasks and chase that feel good

Celebrating your wins also further reinforces this pathway in your brain Action - Reward.

Imagine a scenario where your brain is working with you and you intrinsically want to tick off items on your to-do list?

That’s what we’re trying to achieve here.

If you ever sit there trying to work and it feels like your brain is pulling you out to check your phone, to open YouTube or instagram, to go get a snack, or even to grab another coffee / tea….then your brain is addicted to cheap dopamine.

……

Final points:

• Eliminate cheap dopamine

• Distraction proof your work environment

• Body Doubling works great (work around other people working)

• Set clear small actionable items

• Get addicted to ticking off to-do list items

• Pomodoro technique for bouts of focus

• Focus music can help

• Reward yourself

• Close loops (clear wrap up of tasks completed)

Another absolutely key point:

A shut down ritual at the end of your work day.

As freelancers every hour in every day is a possible work hour and you never really shut off, unless you have clear an explicit boundaries for your work day and context switch.

Having your brain on 24/7 and never fully shutting down from work is mentally exhausting and your brain wants to know when it’s using its resources and that this period will end with a result.

Working endlessly without any reward at the end and no shut off period is toxic to your ability to focus in a meaningful way.

That’s enough from me today…

I need to go and focus!