The power of Focus | Change your thoughts

I feel great encouragement upon seeing that his blog brings in $1500 a month. The writing is mediocre. "Now grab your balls and jump." But apparently it provides enough value for enough of an audience to get the University of Phoenix, Dianetics, and the author of an ebook on how to pick up women in parks, bookstores, and clubs to pay him some decent money.

Rereading that, it looks sarcastic, but I don't mean it that way. Something that holds a lot of us back from getting into business, including me, is that we don't tolerate mediocrity anywhere in our lives. We don't eat at the Olive Garden, we don't listen to Britney Spears, we don't settle for junky cameras or poorly exposed pictures, and most of us won't even use Windows. For us, it's either minimalist or excellent—either ramen noodles or home-cooked Indian food (and even when we make ramen noodles, they come out surprisingly good). But the majority of actual b2c transactions consist of exchanging money for mediocrity, between people who don't know and don't care.

Every time I read about scheduling, prioritization, and focusing on your top tasks, I think of the movie "The Exorcist" when father Karras briefs father Merrin:

KARRAS - I think it would be helpful if I gave you some background on the different personalities Regan has manifested. So far, there seems to be three. She's convinced-

MERRIN - There's only one.

If you're a programmer, forget about scheduling, prioritizing, and focusing on multiple things. Work exclusively on the #1 thing. Nothing else has made me more productive. See how simple.

pg even talks about it in his essay "Good and Bad Procrastination"

http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html

"What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?"

Declaring a date and numerical measure for a goal so much beyond your control strikes me a little weird. Sure, it leads to productive and joyful action, so that's good. But large-scale market acceptance depends on finding an opportunity for fast growth and capitalizing on it, not (merely) on hard work or even focused work. If you are barking up the wrong tree, you will get nothing no matter how loud and long you bark.

I'll give him a chance. He might be shooting too far, too soon with the one post a day stuff, but I'll subscribe and give him the chance.

The real power of Focus: http://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/08125363...