Week 2023#19: focus & clarity

Focusing on execution works best when you have a plan for how to execute

My recipe for a 10/10 morning experience.

What I’ve learned

Focusing on something works better when you have a clear plan for how to execute your idea.

Friday was a really strange day because most people in the office went for a hike as part of our Health Week activities.

That meant that the office was eerily empty.

When I saw the whole team sitting next to my team leaving for a hike, I thought that I missed a great opportunity for a team event.

It didn’t occur to me to ask the whole team to join the hike organized by the company.

Instead, we all worked.

Recently I’m thinking a lot about accountability and I had a task left for this week that I didn’t even touch before Friday, so I felt embarrassed.

Embarrassed because I’m thinking a lot about how important it is to keep your word.

And I was about to not keep mine.

I’m not coding all that often anymore, so I didn’t want to make assumptions about what is the best solution and instead asked people in the team with more experience.

A plan manifested.

Then I could focus on just executing that plan.

And the results surprised me!

Focusing is so much more effective when you don’t have to be creative at the same time.

Being able to finish a task in half the time I expected it to take blew my mind.

Analyzing the situation in the evening, I realized that it was much easier to focus, because the what and why were already figured out, and the how was almost apparent just by looking at the existing code.

This experience got me thinking about other areas of life where I’m still in an exploratory phase and lack focus.

Maybe it is time to make plans for execution.

And then just focus on execution.

And then be good at something.

Direction vs Movement

Time to compare the new “directions” (not expectations anymore) to where I’ve actually moved:

• Gardening: Sunday was the day: both Andreas and Roberto came over to help and the garden is starting to shape up. Carrying heavy stones around to form a very basic sitting area was way more fun than it should have been.

• Momentum: I wouldn’t say that I’ve built up more momentum, but I at least preserved the existing one. Again it feels like two weeks happened in the span of one physical week.

• Saying “yes” to opportunities outside my comfort zone: yes! Both at work and in my side business opportunities to say “yes” presented themselves and I took them.

Directions for Week 20:

• Gardening again: it feels like the garden is close to being a place where one can actually spend quality time. On Sunday we discovered the spot in the garden that gets the evening sun and cleared out everything around that corner. Now it’s just a matter of removing the remaining plant matter, reshaping the corner a bit and then it’s going to be a really nice spot to hang out.

• Exploration: I have another project (to be announced soon!) that I want to explore and finally I received the critical ingredient to proceed to the next step.

• Energy at work: After Friday I feel especially motivated to show up as the best version of myself at work.

What happened

Highlights of last week:

• Again I mostly ignored my phone and again it brought more happiness and clarity.

• Chased the sun for the whole day on Saturday and feel like I finally know a good spot from where to watch the sunset.

• No expectations! This whole “living in the moment” thing from last week also persisted throughout this one. And it feels great! Everything feels more intense.

• Saw "Oopus” live again, stayed up until 3 am for that on a Thursday, and somehow still had an amazing Friday!