Scott Young

Now I will have less distraction.
—Leonhard Euler, mathematician, upon losing the sight in his right eye

The struggles with focus that people have generally come in three broad varieties: starting, sustaining, and optimizing the quality of one’s focus.

Problem 1: Failing to Start Focusing (aka Procrastinating)

anxiety was that by committing something to paper, there was a good chance I might end up writing it poorly. Silly, I know. But most motives to procrastinate are silly when you verbalize them, yet that doesn’t stop them from ruling your life.

first step to overcoming procrastination: recognize when you are procrastinating

You’re procrastinating, but you don’t internalize it that way. Instead you’re “taking a much-needed break” or “having fun, because life can’t always be about work all the time.

actual behavior—you don’t want to do the thing you need to be focusing on, either because you are directly averse to doing it or because there’s something else you want to do more.

Recognizing that you’re procrastinating is the first step to avoiding it.

first crutch comes from recognizing that most of what is unpleasant in a task (if you are averse to it) or what is pleasant about an alternative task (if you’re drawn to distraction) is an impulse that doesn’t actually last that long

Telling yourself that you need to spend only five minutes on the task before you can stop and do something else is often enough to get you started.