On Focus

Most people treat focus as a matter of willpower. Block the distractions, sit down, get to work. But this framing misses something important: focus isn’t something you apply to a task. It’s something you cultivate over time, or erode.

The cost of context-switching

Every time you shift attention — from deep work to a notification, from a problem to a meeting — there’s a recovery cost. Studies put it at roughly 20 minutes to return to full depth. Do the math on a workday full of interruptions and there’s almost nothing left.

The question isn’t how to focus better in the moment. It’s how to structure a life where focus is the default state rather than a hard-won exception.

What this looks like in practice

It means designing your environment before you need it. Clear physical space, closed tabs, no phone in the room. It means protecting the first hours of the day before the world has made its demands. It means saying no to things that fragment time, even when individual asks seem small.

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