I thought focus meant exclusion; mastering one thing completely before moving to the next.

I was wrong. Focus isn’t about exclusion. It’s about presence.

The Problem with Single-Minded Focus

Channeling all energy into one area atrophies everything else. Like exercising only one muscle group; you gain strength there while losing it everywhere else.

For developers: Becoming a React expert while losing touch with CS fundamentals, system design, or emerging technologies. You master one thing but lose the ability to apply it in the real world.

Intervals of Development

Instead of deep-work obsession, practice intervals of development: visit important skill areas regularly with variable depth based on discovery.

Benefits:

• Prevents skill decay through regular activation
• Accelerates learning via cross-domain connections
• Builds cognitive flexibility through integration across domains
• Reduces anxiety by ensuring nothing critical gets neglected

What True Focus Actually Means

True focus is full commitment to whatever deserves attention in each moment, guided by the work’s natural rhythms, not arbitrary deadlines or obsessive completion.

This is challenging for those of us who treat every task as urgent and world-ending. Beyond daily practice, we must evolve our perspective on what ourselves, our teams, and stakeholders actually need.

The shift: From “I must finish this NOW” to “What deserves my full attention right now, and what can wait?”