The Trouble Isn’t Interest, It’s Force
Dear [FIRST NAME GOES HERE],
The Waves of Focus course and community is now open to new members through November 2nd.
- Kourosh
_________________________
A familiar refrain from many a wandering mind.
Too often we say it’s all about interest or urgency, something shiny or on fire. We throw up our hands and say, “without these we can’t do anything.”
But there’s so much more going on than simply interest. Interest, after all, is a deeply complex emotion. In fact, it may be more about an injured sense of trust within ourselves.
An Example
It would seem simple, for example, to set up a “thing to do” from 4-5pm. But a whole series of questions can appear, each belying a lack of trust:
- How will I feel when that time comes?
- What will I be in the middle of?
- Would I be able to stop if I got started?
- Would I be able to get back if I need to set it aside?
- Would I even know what to do if I started? And what if I don’t?
- What if other things come up while I’m working? Will I even realize it?
- Would I miss yet another important matter?
- What if I run off on a thousand tangents in the meantime?
Years of experience have taught us that things can go very wrong very quickly. Why even start?
Where to Grow Trust
The practice is to grow trust that we can ride emotional waves besides desire and urgency. In other words, can we engage if we “don’t feel like it.” That doesn’t mean we ignore those feelings. Quite the contrary, the exercise becomes one of agency: that ability to decide and engage non reactively.
This is not something we grow automatically. By definition, it cannot be forced. A visit-based approach, as is my encouraged unit of work, can be one method to gather that over time.
When we can trust ourselves to find those seeds, the world starts to open up. The heavy fog of impossibility begins to lift. We can not only be on top of our work, we can start more reliably getting to things that matter to us, feel more confidence in our visions and how we develop them and even improve our relationships.
We garden that spirit through risk and bravery, and we do so in a kind considered way.
- Kourosh
PS. If you find these newsletters to be helpful and are interested in a structured deep dive into transforming your workflows over time, not through some next hack of whatever sort, check out the Waves of Focus. Doors are now open to new members until November 2nd.
Join the Weekly Wind Down Newsletter
Get a weekly letter about getting to play and meaningful work. Start getting where you want to be with calm focus. You’ll receive free samples of:
- Creating Flow with OmniFocus
- Taking Smart Notes with DEVONthink
- Workflow Mastery
- PDF on beating deadlines with ease using the Touching the Keys Technique
Recent Posts
The Joys of Avoiding Notes and AI
Note takers, makers, apps, and shakers have been quite the rage in recent days. With a promised ease of writing, can we create simply by resting on the notes we've naturally squirreled away? Or perhaps we can turn to AI. From a carefully crafted prompt or two, we can...
Will it Ever End? … The Work of Work
It never ends, does it? If you write out your projects -- work, school, personal, or otherwise -- you’ll quickly discover a never-ending sea of things to do. Further, you now need to juggle your options. How do you figure out which is the most pressing, while hoping...
Creativity as Discovery
“When will it be done?” Many of us have to answer this question, whether it’s a work environment asking for estimate of time for a project or even from ourselves when trying to decide what to do next. Of course, it can be notoriously difficult to measure time, whether...
The Visit and Reaching the Edge of Action
Forcing ourselves to get started, through deadlines, shame, or asking others to push us can leave us feeling exhausted. But when we use a Visit-Based approach, rather than one based in force, we support ourselves. Many of my students have described a sense of relief...
Force-Based Systems and the Fickle Fuel of Fear
Stuck Those of us who feel like we cannot work unless we are interested in something or are fueled by some impending deadline, can simply feel stuck. We can neither fake interest, nor can we fake deadlines. So, what do we do? Unfortunately, feelings of helplessness...
The Pain of Potential
I could do this! I can do that! But, I need to this! But, but... I really want to do that! One of the powers and frustrations of a wandering mind is the number of things that we can do at any one time. What’s even more frustrating is fully knowing that if we committed...
The Vital Need for Play in Work
When feeling dependent on deadlines, feeling that we can only things we are interested in, Forcing ourselves to work by some means can seem to be the only choice. However, it might be only have been a default choice. It may have never occurred to you that alternative...
David Sparks’ Productivity Field Guide Released
My pal, David Sparks, has done it again and released his latest Productivity Field Guide (Standard Edition|Plus Edition) (limited time 10% launch discount PFGLAUNCH). I do love his intro: “Productivity has become a dirty word... The real solution isn’t about doing...
Podcast appearance – The Omni Show!
The Omni Group, makers of my beloved OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, and OmniOutliner, had me join their Omni Show podcast where I got to discuss my use of OmniFocus. Have a listen here. It's the second time I've been on the show, and I've really enjoyed my conversations with...







