Focus
“a point of concentration”
In this day and age with all the bells, whistles, distractions, emails, social media, videos, blog posts, breaking news, disruptive people, life, and so on…it becomes ALMOST impossible to stay focused on any one thing. Doing so requires treating “focusing” as an art form.
I know for me, I need to be ever mindful, from moment to moment, of my current point of concentration. Do you know that I have to literally and out loud tell myself: “focus, focus, focus” when I go to post my MotDs on IG? If I don’t, I’m immediately distracted by the first post in my feed and before I know it I’ve spent an hour scrolling through all these delightful (distracting) posts. And then when I realize that I’ve had enough, I close the app to go do something else. Then to my horror, I realize that I forgot to post on IG! Ack! Focus Focus Focus!
Recently, I implemented two new-to-me systems to help me focus on my tasks and projects. Without a system, my days usually operate by default…as the spirit moves me…or as different things pop that grab my attention. Then at the end of the day, I see that I did little towards my projects…but I did solve that day’s NYT crossword and Wordle! Yeah me!
Anyway, focus Maureen. So these two new-to-me systems go like this. System 1 is from Carl Pullein’s video. I adopted a variation of his weekly planning. Instead of a large notebook, I opted for a smaller 3×5 notebook. Essentially the idea is that on Saturday morning (or whatever day works for you), I list all that you want to get done for the upcoming week. So it covers Saturday-Friday. Then the night before or the morning of each day, on the next page, I list eight of those things to work on, give each item a little tick box. Some tasks I’ll be able to do in one day, others will take a couple of days or all week. The point is to devote some time on it each day. This system has been surprisingly effective for me; it also works as a diary. It’s simple, it’s handy, it’s readily available without having to open any distracting electronics, it takes little time, and MOST IMPORTANTLY it helps me focus on my day/week.
Here’s a screenshot of yesterday’s and today’s:
System 2 I adopted from something Stacie Bloomfield shared as part of her free week-long “The Artist’s Side Hustle” mini course (which ends soon) as a promotional for her full-on Leverage Your Art course, which starts soon. In one of the mini-course videos she talks about creating frameworks (a term I only just learned of two weeks ago). Essentially this system operates monthly/weekly. You determine a goal for the month. Then you break it down into 4 doable weekly chunks. Each day of each week you focus on that week’s “chunk”.
So for me, I made a goal this month (April 2024) to update my website with up-to-date images of all the art, designs, and readings. Here are the four chunks/weeks:
- photograph my latest mandalas, mandala meditation stones, and oracle decks
- format/prep photos
- pull together latest digital images from my mandalas of the day, week, month, and year
- update my website with all these new images
I need all the help I can get to stay focused on my tasks at hand…otherwise I’m just floundering.
How about you? Is focus a core value for you?
BTW…here’s what it looked like to begin with…
joyfully,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
inspiring and encouraging creativity, curiosity, and play through the art of mandalas
About the 2024 Mandalas of the Day
Each day I will create and post a mandala inspired by one of 366 “value” words chosen randomly. The objective being to discover for myself which ones would best represent my core values…and by doing so, I hope it inspires you to determine your own.
Mandala of the Day 