“If you really want to focus on something, says Castellanos, the optimum amount of time to spend on it is ninety minutes. Then change tasks. And watch out for interruptions once you re really concentrating, because it will take you twenty minutes to recover.”
“You can t get attention of one who focused on himself.”
“It s as if when I open myself up to every perception, things create their own focus.”
“Such a simplified lifestyle can be truly wonderful - you ll finally have time for the things you really love, for relaxation, for outdoor activities, for exercise, for reading or finding peace and quiet, for the loved ones in your life, for the things you re most passionate about. This is what it means to thrive - to live a life full of the things you want in them, and not more. To live a better quality of life without having to spend and buy and consume.”
“Jobs s intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser attention on them, and filter out distractions. If something engaged him- the user interface for the original Macintosh, the design of the iPod and iPhone, getting music companies into the iTunes Store-he was relentless. But if he did not want to deal with something - a legal annoyance, a business issue, his cancer diagnosis, a family tug- he would resolutely ignore it. That focus allowed him to say no. He got Apple back on track by cutting all except a few core products. He made devices simpler by eliminating buttons, software simpler by eliminating features, and interfaces simpler by eliminating options. He attributed his ability to focus and his love of simplicity to his Zen training. It honed his appreciation for intuition, showed him how to filter out anything that was distracting or unnecessary, and nurtured in him an aesthetic based on minimalism.”
“...on the job there was nothing but the job. You left the shit outside the door. You could always pick it up on your way back out.”
“Knowing the Techniques of Survival........ Our fears and anxieties will often drive us to build impenetrable walls that act like blinders deflecting others and preventing us from seeing who surrounds us. Getting focused to the things that matter are the Key to what has to be to COMPLETE our MISSION. I Had Every Excuse to Fail but I Chose None Speak Life!!! (sky)”
“Each day, wake up with a plan. Don’t just approach your days in an unfocused void. That state of mind leaves too much room for discontent, opposition, unhappiness and hopelessness.”
“Don’t pass on your passions, to settle in the stale normality. Endure. Strive. Ensure.”
“Among these temperamentally unhappy campers are reactant personalities, who focus on what they often wrongly perceive as others attempts to control them. In one experiment, some of these touchy individuals were asked to think of two people they knew: a bossy sort who advocated hard work and a mellow type who preached la dolce vita. Then, one of the names was flashed before the subjects too briefly to register in their conscious awareness. Next, the subjects were given a task to perform. Those who had been exposed to the hard-driving name performed markedly worse than those exposed to the easygoing name. Even this weak, subliminal attention to an emotional cue that suggested control was enough to get their reactant backs up and cause them to act to their own disadvantage. All relationships involve give-and-take and cooperation, so a person who habitually attends to ordinary requests or suggestions like a bull to a red flag is in for big trouble in both home and workplace.”
“All of your precious resources - time, energy, talent, passion, and money - should only go to the areas of your life or your business that are best, are fixable, and are indespensable. Otherwise, average sets in and [your life] does not become what it was designed to be.”
“Debriefing-style counseling after a trauma often aggravates a victim s stress-related symptoms, for example, and 4 in 10 bereaved people do better without grief therapy.”
“Yet he argued that even a tedious topic can take on a certain fascination if you make an effort to look at it afresh: The subject must be made to show new aspects of itself; to prompt new questions; in a word, to change. From an unchanging subject the attention inevitably wanders away.”
“What you focus on expands. So focus on what you want, not what you do not want.”
“One of Job s great strengths was knowing how to focus. Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do, he said. That s true for companies, and it s true for products.”
“Information overload is a symptom of our desire to not focus on what s important. It is a choice.”
“I don t spend a lot of time asking WHY? Instead I focus on what I should do now or how I should react. (p.180)”