Twelve years ago, I sat in front of a camera for Amoura Productions and talked, among other things, about focus. Reading the transcript now, the only thing that’s changed is that the list of distractions has gotten longer. I was reminded of this in a customer success phone call with a client last week. The client rightly redirected my focus. So, I felt it was time for me to hear my own advice again.
Some things are evergreen. Here is what I said.
Focus is a muscle. It’s something that needs to be exercised in order to be good. Like anything else. If you get out of practice on focus, it’s hard to get back into practice. You have to exercise that focus muscle.
When you’ve settled into a pattern where you’re constantly being distracted by anything, the phone, the TV, whatever, you’ve lost something. And it’s very difficult to get back. There are some interesting iPhone apps being developed to help people recover their focus. They force you to sit and meditate. Starting at five minutes. Then ten. Then fifteen. Just to get back into the practice of being able to focus on a single thing for more than five minutes at a time.
I have friends. Business associates. They’re not the same people they used to be. They’re not as effective. They’re consumed with multitasking all day long. People who used to be extremely good at their job have become less effective because they cannot break away.
They’ve got a chat window up. Facebook on screen. A Skype window, because some people are on Skype and some are on iMessage and some are on Facebook messages. They’ll answer an email over here, then jump over to do this, then pick up the phone.
We’re kidding ourselves into thinking we’ve made ourselves more efficient and effective. We’re less effective. Less efficient. Less good at the jobs we’re supposed to be doing. We’re not giving the people we’re talking to the respect and attention they deserve. We’re not giving the thing we’re working on the attention and respect it deserves.
It’s a problem. We’re paying a massive price for it.
I’ve seen it in myself. I’ve seen myself become less effective.
Focus In 2026
Skype is barely a thing anymore. Facebook Messenger is fading. Slack didn’t exist yet. Neither did Discord. Or TikTok. The list of distractions has only grown.
And now there’s something the 2014 version of me didn’t quite see coming. We’re no longer just being pulled in twelve directions at once. We’re starting to outsource the focus itself. Let the AI write the email. Let the AI summarize the meeting. Let the AI listen to the podcast for me.
The muscle doesn’t only atrophy from disuse.
It atrophies from being told it isn’t needed anymore.
This has to be one of my favorites (and a really timely one). Thanks Jeff.
Thank you, Jovan.