Focused Intention

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus." - Alexander Graham Bell

Depth. Breadth. Quality. Quantity. These are just arbitrary measurements or ephemeral markers we use to make sense of our experiences and efforts.

Interestingly and from experience, both seemingly opposite qualities can coexist at the same time but not for a long time.

At some point, one gives way to the other, not unlike an ecosystem where resources are constantly redistributed and reallocated.

An example could be creative pursuits. A novelist could start with a vast landscape of ideas, then progressively focus, distilling thousands of potential narratives into a singular, refined story.

In our hyper-connected world, the winners or rather dominant qualities are skewed towards rapid consumption and superficial engagement.

Quantity has become the primary metric of success. More content, more connections, more achievements, which masks an erosion of depth.

I think the main reason for this is our contemporary economic and technological infrastructure through rewarding speed and volume over nuanced, deep understanding.

Algorithms and market dynamics incentivize quantity over quality, breadth over depth, creating a system that continuously fragments our attention.

The Cognitive Toll of Constant Switching

We pride ourselves on our ability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously, which definitely has its appealing narrative of efficiency and adaptability, especially in a fast-moving world.

Image Source

Neuroscience tells a different story, in that our brains aren't actually multitasking. What they're doing is merely rapidly task-switching, which could be defined as mental gymnastics that depletes our cognitive resources far more than we realize.

Imagine your attention as a finite resource (which it is). Every time you shift between tasks, you're spending precious mental energy on recalibration. Akin to repeatedly stopping and restarting an engine.

The Deep Work Alternative

For the most part, I don't think deep work can be a default state of mind we operate from.

The main reason why is the intensity required to maintain profound concentration is unsustainable against the backdrop of modern life's constant interruptions and stimuli.

A state of profound concentration where we engage with a task so completely that we enter a flow state isn't necessarily about working harder or becoming a productivity machine.

With all of that said, deep work can be perceived as a life philosophy and not merely a productive instrument.

I think many of these concepts have numerous aspects to them, depending on which angle we look from.

The Philosophical Underpinning

The philosophical aspect is basically a return to presence or rather complete immersion, through which experiences are perceived as intrinsically valuable, and not just as means to an end.

This echoes ancient wisdom about presence and "mindfulness", i.e., being more fully present in what we do.

It takes courage to resist the culture of constant busyness. To move against the tide of performative productivity that equates worth with constant motion.

There's intention, then there's focused intention. The not so subtle aspect of the latter is a deliberate reclaiming of one's cognitive landscape.

You know when you've done something but can't remember most of the experience because either it was a mundane thing or your self wasn't fully there all along.

This is happening to me less nowadays, even with mundane things.

And one of the primary lens I view it from is through a question that goes like: won't you commit fully to a task when there's a sense of meaningful engagement instead of just completing work for the sake of external validation or arbitrary metrics?

Alternatively, it's almost the norm to skim the surface on most of the experiences we encounter, given there are myriad of experiences that are easily accessible to partake in, or so it seems.

Where could I dive deeper without losing myself in the process? Without becoming so focused that I miss the broader context of my existence?

Focused intention is an art. A deliberate choice to be fully present and engage deeply in the process of transforming doing from a mere mechanical act into something profoundly human.

Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.