Focus ain't the secret

Another day, another segment of mastering your mind. As always, today you're going to realize that it wasn't your fault, not in your relationships (there you totally deserved everything), but in your career/business. I am going to show you how to unlock your secret potential and achieve what you truly desire.

What you missed

Up until now, you've been aware of only 25% of the equation. Everyone has explained why focus is essential and how to achieve it, but no one has unveiled the other 75%.

Above, you see the "holy trinity" (yes, there are 4 things, but I'm bad at math D:). Here, you're shown:

1. Clarity - to know what you want and how to get it.

2. Energy - your daily energy.

3. Willpower - the ability to execute boring tasks.

4. Focus - the multiplier that focuses (pun not intended) the other 3.

Your mentors either didn't know or didn't care to show you the other parts of the system. They have glamorized focus and its powers (which it has), but focus is only a multiplier. If everything else is at 0, well... you do the math.

I will give you some examples with points so your video game-addicted minds can understand them better.

Most likely, these are your current stats. You are good at focusing and isolating your work. However, the prerequisites that focus multiplies are really low, which will cause your total output to be low as well.

Compare the above to the below, and you will see the difference (it's 5x).

If you little degenerates think that 5x is not that much, please close this article. I you won’t need the skills anyway.

Now comes the important question - “What should we eat for dinner?” No... the other important question - “Well, how do I level up my stats?”. That's what we are going to learn in the next sections.

Energy

Energy is by far the hardest to optimize because it depends on a lot of thing, things that you might like, but are bad for you. However, to achieve your dream goals, you need to make some sacrifices.

If you don't sacrifice for your goal, your goal becomes the sacrifice.

Energy is also the hardest to define. The best definition I have is “zero brain fog”. It's the time when you wake up fully rested, fasted, and your brain feels like it's not yours...

Sleep

We start with sleep, and like our relationships, everyone talks about polymorphism (many), but anyone that tries it always regrets. If you sleep monomorphically (one sleep), it will be easy to find out how much sleep you need.

You might be blessed with a 6-hour sleep or cursed with 10. For the biggest optimization, you will need to know how much you need.

Afterward, you will have to find your chronotype. Chronotype is the word that signifies when you wake up and when you go to bed. If you've heard that some entrepreneurs wake up at 4 AM in the morning, remember that they are either lying or early in the morning is their best performing time. Find yours, and you will be amazed at how easy work becomes!

There are other basic factors that you need to know.

• You sleep best at around 16-19 degrees Celsius.

• Don't eat at least 3 hours before going to bed.

There are probably more that I can think of, but this is going to turn into a sleep article, so I am going to cut it short.

Diet

Similar to sleep, there are many different types of diets. The "best diet" varies from person to person, and some might feel better on keto, carnivore, or other strange eating habits. However, it's best for you to identify which foods make you less productive and eliminate them.

Certain foods, generally fast carbs, can make your brain function like a monkey. They will cause an insulin spike that will make a hungry lion to fall asleep and cuddle with a sheep. As you can guess, this is not good for you. After consuming certain foods (like bananas with honey, I really like those...), your body will expend most of its energy towards digesting the food, rather than engaging in thoughtful activities, ultimately making you "dumber."

Find what foods your body functions best on and stick with those. Additionally, ensure you are getting enough protein, fats, vitamins, and all the other important bits.

Substances ?

That depends on you, just try not to overdose... with coffee (I know what you thought). Different stimulating substances like caffeine and black/green tea are quite useful, as long as you don't become dependent on them.

Being dependent means using them not because they make you better, but because without them you are worse. You know that you have reached that point, the turning point where you no longer use caffeine, but caffeine uses you. When you reach this point of “I can't work without coffee”, that is when you should stop drinking it (at least for a while) - video on the subject.

On the other side, coffee and other 'substances' can be quite useful if you know how to use them right (another video). They are not for pleasure but for work, and if you use them, it should be for this purpose and this only. Currently, I am on the side of “abusing” coffee for only important work. This means once a day for 6 days a week (at most), and sometimes I will take breaks of 2-3 days.

With coffee, you build tolerance. If you want to be more efficient (and less addicted), you need to know:

1. How fast you are building tolerance.

2. How much caffeine you need to have high energy (and enter flow easily).

The first point you just need to figure out by yourself, give it a try and see when the effect of coffee starts fading out. Then you will know when to take a day off from caffeine.

The amount you need will determine the task you are doing. If it's manual, you may need higher amounts, and if it's mental, I suggest microdosing it. When doing mental tasks, you need a calm and effective mind, not one that is high on coffeeine and ADHD.

Clarity

I know you degenerates think "I want money" is enough for your clarity, however, if it were enough, you would have skipped this section of the article, wouldn't you?

"I want money", "I want fame", or "I will show them all" are good starting points, however, we need to improve on them as they are really vague. We need to pick a clearer goal for you, one that will satisfy this need and is also autistically easy to follow.

Most likely, if you are reading this, you are some kind of programmer, so this example will suit you.

"I want to learn solidity"

• Complete 1 part a day of the 30-part solidity course.

• Read 1 article a day on how different crypto protocols work.

• Post what you learned on Twitter every day.

Depending on how much free time you have, you can add more tasks, remove some, or make some more extensive.

The above example is a good level of clarity (you can always make it better and easier to follow) that will give you 3 tasks that you need to finish before turning the PC off. This will prevent you from distractions, as you know you need to finish these 3 before wasting your time on YouTube cat videos.

And what next? What happens when I learn solidity? Well, your next step to your final goal "make money", is to get hired as a solidity developer. Here are a few goals you will need:

• Start working on a project (for production).

• Post actively on Twitter and other social media.

• Complete puzzles and participate in hackathons/CTFs.

If your semi-goal changes in the meantime from "I want to work as a developer" to "I want to have my own project", you can always switch or replace some of your daily tasks.

It's that simple. Clarity is to have a direction and a plan. The clearer the direction and the better the plan, the faster you will move forward in its execution.

Willpower

The easiest to understand, and the hardest to implement.

Willpower is the ability to brute force through things that you don't like.

You are bored and don't want to write code, "Forget it, I am writing code now," and you open the editor and start writing.

This is not discipline, this is willpower, and your willpower is like a battery. The more you use it, the less you have left in the tank. To recharge it, you will need better sleep and some passive and active rest. You can check those in another article of mine (after you finish this one wink).

But don't worry, there is good news too! The "battery" that contains your willpower can actually get bigger. Yes, like every other skill in your life, you can also improve in willpower. And how is that done, you may ask... Well, if you go to the gym, you "break" your muscles, and they become bigger. The same applies here.

The more you use your willpower, the bigger the battery will become.

But keep in mind that it can't be infinite, you can run out of willpower, no matter how big your battery is. This is a reminder not to always rely on it, as it will fail you when you most need it.

If you want an even better explanation, go and check out one of the videos where I learned these subjects - here.

That should be all for today, thank you again for giving me your time and attention. If you enjoyed this article, feel free to tweet about it!