The Problem Was Never Focus

I have always been someone who gets distracted easily.

I work during the day, and at night I still want to build something of my own.
Part of my brain is thinking about content, another part is thinking about growth systems, and I keep telling myself that if I just push a little harder and do a little more, one day everything will finally click into place.

So last year, my calendar was full almost the entire time.
My to-do list had nearly 500 tasks on it. Every time I finished one, more would show up behind it, like a digital black hole that could never quite be filled.

But the real problem was not that I was not trying hard enough.
It was that after work, I kept scattering my limited attention across all kinds of things that looked important.

Until one day, I realized I could not even finish the single most important task:
I still had not built my personal website.

For a long stretch of time, I was trapped in constant internal friction.

I would sit in front of my computer, open countless competitor tabs,
run round after round of market research,
study why they launched certain products that quarter,
and analyze their target audience in hopes of finding a better sales angle.

And yet I still could not get myself to start my own website,
or even finish the most basic introduction page.

I knew it was the key task I had to do, but no matter what, I just could not make myself move.
Days like that made me unbearably anxious.

I wished I could order a few bottles of raw motivation online and inject them straight into my veins,
so I could instantly become one of those endlessly driven people.
Or maybe I should just give up all these ambitions,
delete every online course,
and escape the hamster wheel of knowledge-hoarding altogether.

But reality does not work like that.

The things that need to be done still need to be done.
Dirty dishes do not magically clean themselves. Sooner or later, you still have to stand at the sink.

So I started reading books about managing focus.

Book One: Get Your Body Moving First

The first one was The Now Habit.

To be honest, I was not convinced at first.
It did not seem especially logical, and the methods did not feel tightly connected.
It read more like a collection of small stories the author had casually written down.

But one idea in it stayed with me all the way to today.

The author argued that procrastination is, in part, a physical problem.

It does not ask you to make better plans.
It does not ask you to force yourself to think harder.
When procrastination hits, there is only one thing you need to do first: get your body moving.

Start with the smallest possible action.
Open the document.
Write one sentence.
Clean up one paragraph.

The brain is like a pinball machine at a night market.
You have to pull the red lever back first and load the spring before the ball can launch.
It needs an initial force to get going.

I tried it half believing, half doubting, and things really did begin to change.

I started finishing the important tasks that used to stay stuck.
They no longer lived only in my head. Bit by bit, they actually began to move forward.

That was the first time I realized this:
procrastination is not laziness.
It is a body that has not been started yet.

Book Two: Productivity Is Not Just About Time

Later, I read The Productivity Project.

That book made me question something I had believed for a long time:
is productivity really about time?

I used to think that if I woke up early on my days off and packed my schedule full,
I would automatically become more efficient.

But I know a brilliant music creator.
He works during the day and creates at night.
He looks incredibly disciplined,
yet he still studies how to manage his productivity better.

After reading that book, I realized he was not chasing more time.
He was paying attention to his energy and focus.

So I started observing myself too.
And then I realized I had been demanding concentration from myself at the wrong hours all along.

I am simply not a morning person.
For me, my real focus does not kick in until after 10 p.m.

When I stopped forcing myself to sleep early and wake early,
I also let go of the pressure that told me I was not allowed to stay up late.
Only then could I settle into deep work at night.

Book Three: Environment Matters More Than Willpower

The third book was Indistractable.

It helped me see a problem I had been choosing to ignore:
I had been living inside an environment that constantly invited distraction.

Email notifications, messages, endless browser tabs, social media algorithms,
every single one of them was designed to keep me from ever fully stopping.

And all along, I thought the problem was me.
I thought I was just not disciplined enough.

But later I realized:
I was not bad at focusing.
I was simply living in an environment that kept interrupting me.

So I did one thing that sounded almost stupid in its simplicity:
I cleaned up my desktop.

I reorganized all the scattered files,
put everything back where it belonged,
and made the screen visually clean again.

Once the visual noise disappeared,
I stopped getting pulled away by every little temptation,
and I was distracted far less often.

In an age of information overload,
we are always collecting and almost never starting.

What we really need is to stop collecting,
and cut down the sources of noise that keep buzzing in our heads.

Focus works the same way.

The products that hook us are never accidental.
They are like potato chips:
tested again and again to hit your dopamine on the very first bite,
so you keep reaching for another, and another, and another.

And me?
I am just a tiny fish.
There is no way I can beat that whole system through willpower alone.

The only thing I can do
is reduce stimulation
so I have a chance to take the actions that actually matter.

The Problem Was Never Focus, but Unrealistic Goals

It was through all of those adjustments
that I slowly came to see one thing clearly:
the problem had never really been focus.

What I lacked was not more methods, more tools,
or some stronger version of self-discipline.
What I lacked were realistic goals.

My old goals looked like this:
two livestreams a week, two long-form videos, and two short videos.

Honestly, that kind of output belongs to a team chasing influencer-scale growth.

And those goals only ever ended one way:
I failed all of them.

Goals I could not reach only made me doubt myself more.
Was I not working hard enough?
Was my execution weak?
And then the next week, I would set the exact same goals again,
like I could not stop running into the same wall and calling it persistence.

I had to wear myself down before I understood:
I cannot do everything well.
I can only do the one thing most likely to change the outcome.

That was when I finally understood the deeper meaning of the Pareto Principle.
Eighty percent of the results come from twenty percent of the actions.
A lot of the effort that fills our heads may simply be useless motion
that never leads anywhere.

That realization also changed how I review my days.

I stopped judging myself by everything I failed to do.
Instead, each night before bed, I ask whether I completed three key actions.
If I did, I check them off.

Checking them off gives me satisfaction,
because every check mark means I used action to break through confusion
and move one step closer to the life I actually want.

I also stopped letting the to-do list chase me around.
Instead, I focus on moving at least one genuinely important thing forward each day.
At the same time, I came to appreciate the value of external accountability.
That is what helped me keep going.
After all, one person may go fast, but a group goes far.

Being Seen Makes It Easier to Keep Going

I once took a creative expression course taught by a bookstore owner.
The assignment was simple:
complete a 12-week publishing plan for your work.

There was nothing sophisticated about the system.
The bookstore owner just created a Google spreadsheet
and asked everyone to paste their work link into it before midnight every Sunday.

That was all.

And yet, somehow, everyone really did keep producing week after week.

Including me.

To be honest, it felt stressful at first.

Because once you saw that others had submitted their work,
you knew your turn had come.

It was uncomfortable.
You started wondering whether you were good enough,
or whether maybe you had no talent at all.
But at the same time, you did not want to be the one who fell behind.

That was when I realized something:
I was not delivering on time because I had suddenly become more disciplined.
I was doing it because I was being seen.

Making progress public
worked better than any productivity tool I had tried.

Sometimes, what we need
is not stronger willpower,
but an environment where we can no longer avoid ourselves.

That was also when I understood something else:
many times, we do not lack ability.
We simply lack companions who are moving forward with us.

When no one knows what I am doing,
I can work hard or slack off,
and I may not even be fully honest with myself about what I actually got done that day.

But once someone is watching,
everything changes.

Reaching Out Is Another Way to Pull Yourself Back

That is why I started taking the initiative to reconnect with people.

How?
It is simple.

When someone’s name comes to mind,
I send them a message.
No matter how long it has been since we last spoke.
No matter where the previous conversation faded out.

Just send one short message.

One time, I suddenly thought of an older friend I had not talked to in a long while.

I hesitated for a moment.
Would this feel too sudden?
Would I be interrupting their hard-earned rest?

But in the end, I sent the message anyway.

They replied almost immediately.
We chatted for a bit,
and I found out that they, too, had been needing someone to talk to during that season.

That was the moment I realized:
some connections are not interruptions.
They arrive at exactly the right time.

Friendship needs deliberate care.

Of course, I cannot be equally close to everyone.
Dunbar’s number is real.

But at the very least,
when I think of you,
I choose to respond to that impulse.

“The weather’s nice lately."
"Want to go for a walk?”