In today’s fast-moving, over-scheduled, multi-tasking world, focusing our attention on one thing at a time can often feel like an exercise in inefficiency. Many of us live in a perpetual state of motion. Victims of our daily grind, our bodies may be present in the here and now, but our minds are often two steps ahead— fixated on tonight’s rush hour traffic, or tomorrow’s project, or how much time we have to complete this thing before we have to hurry along to the next. We value productivity. We hate wasting time. And often, if we’re not killing two birds with one stone, we feel as though we’re just not trying hard enough.
The problem, though, is that a productive life is different than a meaningful one.
And in order to find whatever meaning may be bubbling beneath the surface of our nine-to-five lives, we have to be willing to give our attention to the tasks, people and conversations that truly matter– even when they’re not demanding our presence. Even when they don’t guarantee concrete results. Even when they can’t promise an immediate return on our investment.
The truth is, many of us burn so much energy trying to survive our lives, we end up missing the point of our lives. When skim the surface of our day-to-day while simultaneously cutting ourselves off from our own depth. We miss the bigger picture. We lose ourselves in the productivity trap, then have a hard time finding our way back to the things that matter when we need them most.
A fulfilling career doesn’t unpack itself while we’re head down in busy work. Relationships don’t strengthen while we mindlessly scroll our News Feeds. And meaning certainly doesn’t find us while we’re busy checking boxes and avoiding our own deep work.
Whatever we give our attention to becomes who we are.
Thankfully for us, changing who we are is often just a matter of looking in a different direction.
“Whatever we give our attention to becomes who we are.” Wowza. That is so true. Meaningful and productive can be on the opposite sides of the spectrum. But they don’t have to be, do they? I have been thinking a lot lately about the theme of deep work. I listened to an interview once with the author of the book with the same title, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. The author is Cal Newport. It was an eye-opening interview. Bestseller author, and he doesn’t have a social media account. And when he talked for a while, I figured out I had some serious addiction problems when it comes to my phone and the Internet. Anyway….Deep work is so different from busy work, right? That is obvious. But I find myself so often in the latter instead of the former. I hope I am not rambling. Just wanted to say I agree.