Focus here…

Elite athletes, architects, and you, regardless your ambition, are more alike than dis-similar. Your ability to master your craft depends on your ability to use your brain. Fact. It doesn’t matter whether you are trying to master some process on a mat or some detail on a map, spreadsheet, or a blank piece of canvas, your ability to focus your attention is where it begins.

Way back in the day this skill was honed on the grassy savanna by some ancestors and their slow, patient observation. The longer they could hold their attention and focus their gaze in one direction, the more effectively they determined opportunity from threat. They passed this along. Your brain is still wired to do it’s best work when you focus it in one direction and keep it there for long, extended, purposeful moments. This is why so many “aha moments” occur in the shower, on the bike ride, vacation, or some teambuilding retreat where the technology doesn’t work.

Masters underestand this. Masters don’t book themselves back to back to back because it’s what is expected and what everybody else is doing. Masters, remember, dream and do. Masters schedule margin to think, slow down, reflect, write, walk, refresh, recreate, and all kinda other seemingly unproductive things including, of all things, meditating. Talk about unproductive, huh…

Nope. The truth is your brain, if you want to wire it toward becoming elite in any endeavor, wants you to let it focus in one direction and let it all in. Once that brain of your’s gets accustomed to thinking a bit more and knowing you’re gonna give it the time it wants, the new ideas are gonna come. Study any master and you’ll see this pattern. Again, this is why my bride comes into my office, looks at the books spread across my desk, the books spead across the floor to my left, the books lining the shelves behind me, in front of me, and now outside my office in a new piece of furniture she bought to house the ones that no longer fit in the office, and she sighs, smiles, calls me the nutty professor and then quietly closes the door.

Your brain is a lot like mine. Yup, it is. Your brain wants time to focus. Your brain doesn’t like how much you seem to try to distract it with social media stuff, crazy random app’s, and all kind of entertainment that scatters it’s attention from fast to furious. So, put down your smart phone and give it a rest. Focus your attention toward your aim. You do have a domain specific aim, don’t you? You do have an aim for your work, right? You are a professional, I assume. Well, if your aim isn’t clear, start here. Start getting clarity about the aim of your OPUS. Start with your big dream, your Overarching vision, friend. Focus here. Focus. Take that blank canvas and grab a pen. Throw up your thinking. Repeat until you see a pattern emerge. You’ll see…