Focus: The Big Picture
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We live in a world that does its best to keep us busy all the time. We go to work, rushing to get our projects done, then get home to take care of urgent tasks like paying bills, shopping, and in the case of the insanely interested, to juggle between the different things we want or have promised to do.
In the middle of all of this hassle it’s really easy to get lost.
We end up just going through a “to do” list without realizing that many of the things on the list shouldn’t be done at all. Day after day, our e-mail inboxes keep us busy with urgent requests that capture our attention. And from sunrise to late at night, we just keep moving - not really knowing where we’re headed to.
Life is a bit like canoeing in dangerous, big river rapids. And too often equipped with no understanding of where the river is leading us, and where we should be headed to. Paddling like crazy, just to keep ourselves from drowning.
(Photo by Joshua Davis)
When I find myself in that situation, I wish I could press a pause button and take a deep breath. There is no pause button, but what I can do is to leave my tasks aside for a short while and work out a new, clearer vision of the big picture.
You need to have a big picture
In this series, I will share a few ideas on how to maintain focus even if you are one of the people to whom concentrating in just one thing is right next to a dreadful nightmare. I will cover topics such as outsourcing, picking the most important tasks to work on, and planning your days.
Great topics, but all worthless if you don’t have a clear, focused big picture to guide your decisions.
For someone insanely interested in many things, finding focus can be more challenging than to the rest of the mankind. But it’s not impossible. It all boils down to seeing the big picture behind your actions. You may have a lot different ventures (projects, tasks, errands, jobs, businesses…) but when you look from far enough, they do have some common denominator - and a common goal.
I have to confess that my tag line (”Insanely Interested in Everything”) isn’t completely true: I’m not interested in everything. Just in more things than the average Joe.
That makes a big difference.
It means that there is a big picture to be found: a common denominator to my preferences, a reason for the choices I have done in life, some values that guide my decisions, a story about who I really am.
The big picture of my life.
And I believe your big picture is there to be found as well - you just need to zoom out far enough to see it.
How to find your big picture
If you could only do one thing, what would it be?
As you think of the question, zooming out from the details, you will see that the definition of “that one thing” can be a much broader concept than for example C# programming or selling furniture. When you understand this, you will notice that being insanely interested in everything isn’t really that far from being an expert. It’s just a matter of how you define your expertise.
But how do you know what your big picture is?
I can’t give a final answer to the question as I don’t know the whole answer yet.
All I know is that it is a continuous process that you need to keep coming back to every time you feel lost in the river rapids. Through every successful or failed choice you assess your understanding of what your big picture is, slowly taking out the ideas that don’t belong to it and tying together the ones that do belong. Focusing your big picture from a fuzzy mess into a beautiful image full of life experience - and vision.
In the next posts in the series, we will talk more about the different methods I use to make sense of the world and to get to know my personal big picture.
But right now, I want you to start thinking of your own big picture:
Take a big, empty piece of paper and some pens in different colors, and start drawing.
Write down the things that you do every day.
Identify the ones that you love and the ones you hate.
Write down the things you would like to do.
Think about why you love some things, why you hate some, and why you’d like to do the things you dream of.
And finally, ask yourself the big question: What do all of these things have in common?
This is the beginning. If it was your first time plotting down the big picture, don’t worry - everything might still seem like one big happy mess. But what matter is that you have now taken the first step towards focusing your big picture, and becoming the expert in living your life!
(Photo by Yersinia)
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May 21st, 2008 at 6:59 pm
WOW! I love this post!
Very motivational! Thanks!
By the way, are you doing C# or selling furniture? :-)
Terence Chang’s last blog post: Start Last - Finish First - Are you the next Zappos?
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 am
Jarkko, great advices! And very analytical, too!
Although I have tried quite some ‘methods’ on ‘focusing’ and trying to see what that chaos of interests and actions in life looks like from a bird’s perspective, I have never done the ‘mapping’ the way you suggested. Now that I’ve found out what’s my ‘common denominator’, just have to figure out how to use that discovery… or I’ll just wait for your next post ;)
No, seriously, this mapping helped me understand why I am ‘insanely interested’ in the things I am, but confused me on the spot where I had to decide which things should I weigh ‘less insanely interesting’ at the moment and postpone them for ‘later on’. I realized that I want them NOW, because I am pretty sure that ‘later’ I’ll be interested in other things and the ‘current’ ones will remain as ‘unfulfilled’ wishes/dreams/enthusiasm…
Eagerly waiting for the next post of this series! ;)
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:49 am
Nicely done, Jarkko! And great analogy with the canoeing…Man, sometimes those are definitely some class five rapids when trying to remain focused.
Maybe we should start an online university for the insanely interested? :)
mark @ mytropicalescape’s last blog post: So you want to be a Freelance Travel Writer? Interview With New York Times Freelancer Cindy Price (part 1)
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 am
@Terence: Thanks, man!
Actually I’m not doing either of the two things, I do Java and Ruby programming, though (…and I’m reading a book on C#).
@Dren: I’m glad to hear that the mapping helped you! But I share your pain - it’s not easy to let go on things that you’re less insanely interested in. I’m really bad at that too, which is why I always try to find ways to do more with less effort - I’ll talk about this in a future post in this series (when I tackle the topic of outsourcing).
Today, I’m trying to push out the next article, which is about keeping your focus clear every day.
@Mark: Online University, huh? Sounds cool… In a sense, I guess insanelyinterested.com will be just that if it can live to my expectations ;)
I have now bought the blog theme for it and am in the middle of customizing it, importing my posts, organizing them into better categories, and all that stuff. Can’t wait to share the new blog with everyone.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 am
@Mark
I also can’t wait to enroll to the online program! Actually, I can already see it in my CV: “Graduated cum laude at the University of Insanely Interested” :)