Focus guilt
There are times in life when opportunity cost carries a particularly heavy weight. (Image by Michelle Raponi)
There's something tricky that happens when we transition from being given tasks or projects directly to learning how to manage ourselves.
In order to function successfully as knowledge workers, we have to be able to prioritize. and if we’re not used to prioritizing, we will end up in a situation in which we feel guilty for picking one task over another.
In the worst case, this can lead to bouncing back and forth between two or more projects without being able to focus on one. I call this “focus guilt,” and it is a challenge we need to conquer in order to manage ourselves effectively.
One of my employees went through this a few years ago when she began to have more autonomy in the work that she was doing. As she described it, “whenever I'm doing Project A, I feel like I should be working on Project B. And then whenever I'm working on Project B, I feel the need to switch to Project A.”
The solution that worked, although it took a little bit to get used to, was to make a plan. After all, that nagging sense that there's something else to be done is meant to be helpful. Have you ever had the experience of waking up from a sound sleep realizing that today is the day to pay this particular bill to avoid a $29 fee? Our brains are incredible at supporting us in the things that we need to accomplish, even when we're not consciously aware of those things.
Even though this built-in mechanism for ensuring our safety can be very helpful, it can be overactive if we haven't if we have made a habit of keeping too many things in our heads. This is what David Allen talks about in his book Getting Things Done: He reminds us that, to our subconscious minds, a giant project like solving world hunger takes up the same amount of space as a reminder to ourselves to buy more cat food. Because they are both what he calls “open loops,” they bother us an equal amount if we do not document them in a trusted system.
Therefore, we need to not only track our to-dos for a particular day, we also need to somewhere keep track of all of the different projects that we have. (David Allen, ever straightforward, suggests a projects list.)
Once we have our imaginatively-named projects list, we must decide which of the projects is our top priority and make a schedule accordingly. We need to find some way to make an agreement with ourselves that says that we will get to the other projects at some point.
For some of us, it's enough to just put the project on the list where it will stop nagging at us. However, if we're not sure about the scope of the work that we have to do or how long the project is going to take, we may have to go a little farther in our planning before we can relax about it. We may have to construct an outline of that project and actually put the next step on the calendar. That way, when we're working on Project A, we can soothe ourselves with the knowledge that Project B is actually scheduled for a specific day and time. This relieves us of the need, whether conscious or unconscious, to remind ourselves that this project needs our attention.
Thus, we can sit down and work on Project A without any focus guilt. we can be assured that the task we're working on is the best use of our time right now. We can trust that we've already done the work to organize all of our different projects and make the choice of what to do today based on the best available information. Then, all we need to do is follow the plan.
It's almost as though a boss or a teacher or another authority figure is telling us what we need to do, except the authority figure is simply our past self.
Of course, that's why this issue comes up. Earlier in our lives and our careers, we did have these authority figures telling us what to do and when to do it. Many of us survive for a long time as freelancers simply by following the deadlines that are driven by our clients. However, when the time comes to focus on projects that are more self-directed – projects that no one else is asking for – a lot of us struggle. Now we’re the ones who have to prioritize, and if that’s something that we haven't done much of, of course we won’t know how to do it.
Such work does take practice. I have a tendency, for example, to favor larger projects that make me feel productive, delaying smaller tasks that don't bring me as much gratification to complete, such as calling the doctor to schedule an appointment or sending a Zoom link for an upcoming meeting. However, with consistent effort over time, I've definitely improved at being able to assess my overall situation and make better decisions as a result of thorough planning instead of just dealing with urgencies and emergencies as they come up.
Perhaps the trickiest part of dealing with focus guilt is that you are the only one who can validate the choice that you have made of what to work on and when. There is no boss to praise you and no client to be cheered or disappointed that you've, for instance, purchased a piece of software that you needed or followed through on a commitment to update a web page.
But with time and practice, you can get used to calling the shots for yourself and experiencing the satisfaction of doing the thing that you said you would do with the knowledge that it's the best choice for the moment. With a solid plan, you will be able to concentrate more deeply and work more effectively. You might even eliminate some work from your to-do list, realizing that it's not essential. With this new self-efficacy and faith in your system, you’ll have the confidence to take on more complex projects and find ways to complete your work more quickly or with less stress. Then, you’ll find plenty of time and space to not work at all, also guilt-free. Enjoy it.
