The ability to focus is often very underrated (“I multitask very well!“), but it’s key to getting deep work done. If you can stay focused on your main goals with minimal distraction, you’ll reach them much more quickly. To be honest, this is something I often struggle with.
In Seth Godin’s classic book “The Dip“, he compares focus to birds:
“A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.”
Of course, you also need to be able to recognize when your current path is the wrong one, which can be tricky to see. Not only can it be hard to know for sure, but we often end up holding onto sunk costs, causing us to stick too long.
In Seth’s words, winners quit quite often:
“Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.”
Finding that balance between “keep tapping” and “move on” can be really tough to spot, but can make a huge difference if you’re able to identify it.
