Pandemic Focus – The Climb #825

Thursday 27^th May 2021

If you asked me what is my current pet peeve with myself, it’s my focus. The pandemic really shot it to pieces and as a result, I can only focus on one thing for a short period of time.

I’m quite proud of how I’ve managed to be productive in the pandemic but as the Pandemic has gone on it’s been more a case of trying to do lots of little sessions rather than big sessions.

It feels like it’s slowly starting to improve but it’s sporadic. After yesterday managing to do a writing session approaching what I was doing pre-pandemic, today has been a case of multiple smaller sessions.

My problem is the gap in between sessions. I try and do it so I can swap from writing to something non-writing connected, but with the short sessions there’s a greater risk of seeing something online and going down a rabbit hole.

I didn’t mind so much when those rabbit holes were on process or productivity, but lately they’ve been really random.

I get the work done. I was talking to a friend today about all the writing projects I’ve done (and I didn’t even mention some of the secret ones) and I’ve done a lot.

BUT, I still think I could be slightly more productive. There are tasks I could really smash that I’m procrastinating on. And yes, the main focus is getting done, and that’s good. And yes, I know I can’t be productive all the time, but I don’t feel that some of the side projects are getting the level of focus they need.

Part of the reason is my health. I’m not going to die but illness has really hampered me.

My health has suffered over the last year to 18 months and getting back on track has been a fight. I have good days and bad days and it’s taken six months but at least I’m at a stage where the bad days aren’t as bad as they were. But I’d been planning to go geocaching today and my stomach flaired up and my leg began to ache and made it impossible. I just don’t seem to have the energy to always want to tackle all the problems that compound on each other. It needs an intensity of focus that I just haven’t found since the pandemic started.

So instead, I get the priorities done but always get left frustrated with what hasn’t.