Zooming In

I've been working at getting good at projects that require a lot of tiny
errands that have to be done at specific times and places, like doing my
taxes. So getting things done smoothly without a lot of mental effort. But
when it comes down to it, there are certain projects that just demand
extended concentration - and those include any project that really takes
creativity. I've just read two articles, one in Time and one in Walrus,
about how harmful multitasking turns out to be, and I think they mean this
kind of project.

So I think of it as "zooming in" on a task, an image I like because it
includes the most important part: excluding things that are outside the
focus of the task. To do good writing, for instance, it really seems like
I have to have pushed other things out of my mind - and off my desk. Off
the desk is easy, I just dump everything in my inbox (or file it away if I
want). Then thanks to my Zillion Folder Filing system, I can have a folder
in front of me with *just* the things that are relevant to that project.
Often it helps to grab a fresh piece of paper.

Clearing a space mentally is harder. When you've got half a dozen
deadlines or undone tasks - even other parts of the same project - nagging
at your mind, it gets hard to concentrate for more than 10 consecutive
seconds. The only solution I've found is better time management. You have
to be sure that you have *plenty* of time to focus on this one thing, and
nothing else. That means budgetting that uninterruptable time, at least an
hour usually, and making *hard barriers* on either side of that time to
stop other tasks from seeping in, even if they are urgent. Often for that
to happen I have to make sure I've decided when those things *are* going
to get done. This is why I try to always block out my day the night
before: "project A before lunch, and not even thinking about project B
until after lunch"

Of course the other thing that can prevent focus sometimes are other, more
emotional issues: guilt, insecurity, all those negative inner voices.
Those can be reflective of bigger things than the scope of this blog, but
two quick strategies that sometimes work: arguing with those voices, in
writing (what the psychologist Martin Seligman calls disputation); and
sometimes when I can't actually do the work, I can *plan* the work - as in
the tactic I read somewhere of pretending you've given up on the task, but
you have to write a detailed list of instructions for what the person who
*is* going to finish it needs to do.