Kolz Blog

“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” - Qui-Gon to Anakin, Star Wars Episode I

The quote above, as cheesy as George Lucas’ writing often is, contains a nugget of Jedi wisdom that I’ve repeatedly found to be true. Your focus determines your reality. It’s something we don’t think about much of the time, but give it some consideration now:

• If you wake up in the morning and think about the miserable things you need to do later in the day, you’ll have a miserable day. If you wake up and focus instead on what a wonderful gift your life is, you’ll have a great day.
• If we let our attention jump from one thing to another, we will have a busy, fractured and probably unproductive day. If we focus entirely on one job, we may lose ourselves in that job, and it will not only be the most productive thing we do all day, but it’ll be very enjoyable.
• If we focus on being tired and wanting to veg out in front of the TV, we will get a lot of television watching done. If, however, we focus on being healthy and fit, we will become healthy and fit through exercise and good eating.

This may seem simplistic, but it’s completely true. This is the magical power of focus. Let’s look at some of the ways you can use focus to improve different aspects of your life.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” - Buddha

Focus on a Goal In my experience, focus is the most important determination of whether you’ll achieve a goal or stick to creating a new habit. Not self-discipline, not rewards, not sheer willpower, not even motivation (also an important ingredient, however). If you can maintain your focus on a goal or habit, you will more often than not achieve that goal or create that habit. If you can’t maintain your focus, you won’t achieve the goal, unless it’s such an easy goal that it would have happened anyway. It’s that simple. Why does focus matter so much? Let’s say you decide you want to declutter your house — that’s your goal for this month. So the first day, you’re completely focused on this goal, and you get boxes and trash bags and fill them up with junk. The second day, you’re still focused, and you fill up a bunch more boxes and you’ve cleared most of two rooms with progress on another. This goes on for a few more days, with your focus being on this goal, and lots of progress made. However, let’s say that a week into your decluttering, you decide you want to become a runner. You are now focused on running, and not only do you go out to jog for a few days, you buy running clothes and a Nike-equipped iPod and read running blogs and magazines. However, you’ve lost your focus on decluttering, and soon you aren’t doing much of it, because your focus is on running. In fact, you’ve added more clutter because you’ve bought all the running equipment and magazines and books. Meanwhile, I have maintained my focus on decluttering the entire month, and by the end of the month, I have a nice, simplified house. I did it through focus. This is why I am constantly advocating focusing on only one goal at a time. Having multiple goals spreads out your focus, and makes it less likely that you’ll complete any of the goals. It’s possible, but with a diffused focus, it’s much more difficult. [Read more]

“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” - Qui-Gon to Anakin, Star Wars Episode I

The quote above, as cheesy as George Lucas’ writing often is, contains a nugget of Jedi wisdom that I’ve repeatedly found to be true. Your focus determines your reality. It’s something we don’t think about much of the time, but give it some consideration now:

• If you wake up in the morning and think about the miserable things you need to do later in the day, you’ll have a miserable day. If you wake up and focus instead on what a wonderful gift your life is, you’ll have a great day.
• If we let our attention jump from one thing to another, we will have a busy, fractured and probably unproductive day. If we focus entirely on one job, we may lose ourselves in that job, and it will not only be the most productive thing we do all day, but it’ll be very enjoyable.
• If we focus on being tired and wanting to veg out in front of the TV, we will get a lot of television watching done. If, however, we focus on being healthy and fit, we will become healthy and fit through exercise and good eating.

This may seem simplistic, but it’s completely true. This is the magical power of focus. Let’s look at some of the ways you can use focus to improve different aspects of your life.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” - Buddha

Focus on a Goal In my experience, focus is the most important determination of whether you’ll achieve a goal or stick to creating a new habit. Not self-discipline, not rewards, not sheer willpower, not even motivation (also an important ingredient, however). If you can maintain your focus on a goal or habit, you will more often than not achieve that goal or create that habit. If you can’t maintain your focus, you won’t achieve the goal, unless it’s such an easy goal that it would have happened anyway. It’s that simple. Why does focus matter so much? Let’s say you decide you want to declutter your house — that’s your goal for this month. So the first day, you’re completely focused on this goal, and you get boxes and trash bags and fill them up with junk. The second day, you’re still focused, and you fill up a bunch more boxes and you’ve cleared most of two rooms with progress on another. This goes on for a few more days, with your focus being on this goal, and lots of progress made. However, let’s say that a week into your decluttering, you decide you want to become a runner. You are now focused on running, and not only do you go out to jog for a few days, you buy running clothes and a Nike-equipped iPod and read running blogs and magazines. However, you’ve lost your focus on decluttering, and soon you aren’t doing much of it, because your focus is on running. In fact, you’ve added more clutter because you’ve bought all the running equipment and magazines and books. Meanwhile, I have maintained my focus on decluttering the entire month, and by the end of the month, I have a nice, simplified house. I did it through focus. This is why I am constantly advocating focusing on only one goal at a time. Having multiple goals spreads out your focus, and makes it less likely that you’ll complete any of the goals. It’s possible, but with a diffused focus, it’s much more difficult. Even with only one goal, maintaining focus can be difficult. You need to find ways to keep your focus on that goal. Some good examples that work for me: [Read more]

You may be wildly successful in your work life, but in the midst of that unbridled productivity, it's easy to push your personal goals to the back seat. To combat this common problem, weblog Zen Habits suggests several tips to make time for your personal goals. For example:

Make it your most important appointment. There are appointments we take seriously — a doctor's appointment, or an important meeting — and we will do everything we can to ensure that we make those [Read more]

You may be wildly successful in your work life, but in the midst of that unbridled productivity, it's easy to push your personal goals to the back seat. To combat this common problem, weblog Zen Habits suggests several tips to make time for your personal goals. For example:

Make it your most important appointment. There are appointments we take seriously — a doctor's appointment, or an important meeting — and we will do everything we can to ensure that we make those appointments and are not late for them. But when it comes to our time for [Read more]

Unclutterer.com, one of my favorite blogs, has published a guest post I wrote that I think you might be interested in reading: A Guide to Creating a Minimalist Workspace [Read more]