ERIC KIM

How To Become More Focused

Dear friends, this year let us drive to become more focused. How do we become more focused? My thought is via negativa — ruthlessly prune that which distracts you.

For example, some things which I have done which are very effective:

  1. Get rid of your phone: The most focused I’ve ever been in my life was when I lived in Vietnam for two years, and got rid of my phone. It is insane how so many micro distractions can rob you of your focus. As an experiment, just turn off your phone completely and keep it in a drawer for a full day, and see how your focus changes.
  2. If you want to keep your phone, turn off all notifications besides your phone call feature and your FaceTime. Go a week without sending text messages and without looking at your text messages.
  3. In praise of less storage: currently on my iPhone, I only have 64 GB of storage, and I am always hitting the upper limit. Therefore I had to ruthlessly uninstall all superfluous apps, which did not aid in creation. Ultimately the two apps I really need is the safari web browser, and IA WRITER for writing things. And the benefit of having fewer apps on your phone is that you got more focus, and fewer distractions.
  4. Other things you get uninstall on your phone include email, social media, Netflix and streaming services, etc. Also in order to aid my focus, i have even stopped reading books on my phone. Instead of reading, I either take a nap, workout, or go on a walk in order to stimulate my thoughts. Or drink more coffee.
  5. Stop listening to music: I love music, and I think a life without music is not a life worth living. However, often music distracts us more than aids us in our focus. If you want music to drown out background noise, just listen to hip-hop instrumentals to keep you going. Do not listen to anything with lyrics, as lyrics are a distraction. Also a personal rule I have is that I do not listen to any audiobooks or music while driving in the car, or walking out in public. This also means I do not use headphones outside of my house.
  6. Go Solo: a big thing I’ve learned in my personal life and my creative life is this: collaborations are often not efficient. You have all these great ideas, but when you have to wait on other people, it’s lows you down. Therefore, it is much more effective to just work solo. Only do that what you can do.
  7. Identify your Archimedes lever, and focus on your Archimedes lever. Your Archimedes lever is your one greatest strength, which can make 1000x difference in the world around you. Once you have discovered what you Archimedes lever is, conserve all your strength towards that.
  8. Tire yourself to the mess: if you are like a diseas, and you know that the sirens will ultimately tempt you, set up certain precautionary measures. For example, if you find yourself distracted by the Internet, install the freedom app on your laptop, and block out your Wi-Fi for certain periods of time. The most impressive thing I’ve ever witnessed was when one of my college friends was so addicted to World of Warcraft that he almost fucked out of school, in a moment of self realization, he broke his World of Warcraft CD, threw away the city key, and also disposed all of his items, in order to focus on his studies. Sometimes these brash and extreme actions are necessary. Not all distractions are bad, they are just personal to you. Therefore, whatever you think is distracting to you in a bad way, set up ways to block those websites or apps, in order to help you focus.
  9. Don’t buy anything for a whole year: besides food and other essentials, make it a fun challenge for yourself to not buy anything new for the whole year. This includes clothes, gadgets, phones, cameras, headphones, etc. I don’t think buying things in itself is a bad thing, but the thought of wanting to buy new things is the distraction. When you are in a position where you think that your things are less than optimal, it distracts you from just focusing on your activities. For example for many of us, photography is our passion. But the thought of buying a new camera or a new lens is often what distracts us, instead of just doing the desired activity which is walking more, and shooting more photos.
  10. To focus more on your photography, a simple thought: declare your photography as your ultimate form of artistic expression, and devote all of your artistic and creative energies towards it. Buy books, information, invest in education, and invest in traveling experiences which will argument your opportunities to photograph.
  11. Try to walk at least 30,000 steps a day. How do we best think, and clear our minds? Going on a walk. For example a lot of couple counselors suggest that when you are angry, just go on a walk around the block, to calm yourself down. Similarly speaking, even Friedrich Nietzsche said trust no thought which comes to you which did not arise out of walking. Even Nassim Taleb says in order to become a philosopher, start by walking, slowly. Steve Jobs had his most productive meetings when he walked with the person, walking meetings. What does it mean to focus? To clear your mind, to free up mindspace, in order to do your desired activity. When in doubt, just walk it out.
  12. Don’t check your investments unless you’re actually planning on either selling trading or buying you investments.
  13. Take a break by working on something else. There’s a quote from Heraclitus that says something along the lines of “by changing, it rests”. Therefore, maybe if you’re doing something in a bores you, the best way to rest and recover is just by doing something else.

Photography project ideas

  1. Put together a portfolio of your 10 best photos of all time, and make it a post titled “top 10.“
  2. As a fun idea for the new year, decide what one camera, one lens you want to use for the entire year. Stick with it until the next year, and then if you really really feel like you need a new camera, then buy the new one.
  3. As an assignment, just stick with one aesthetic for the full year. Either only shoot black-and-white for the full year, or only should color for the full year. This will help you become more focused in your photography.
  4. In order to build your visual acuity, and improve your photographic compositional skills, whenever you go out to shoot, just focus on one assignment. For example, only shoot triangles, only shoot rectangles, only shoot squares, or only shoot circles. By limiting your options, you open up your eyes to creativity. improve your visual acuity with how to see.

For more ideas, start here

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