Discover eight distinct “gears” of focus—stages we moves through, from simply being, to considering, approaching, and ultimately performing at our best. Honoring each gear transforms frustration and procrastination into creative flow and agency. Drawing parallels to music, emotional waves, and mindful play, this episode invites listeners to see hard work not as a battle, but as a dance with emotion, context, and self-compassion.

Learn to recognize and move through all eight "gears" of focus, from daydreaming to performing

Every episode features an original piano composition—this time, enjoy “On a Dare” in C minor. Subscribe and find more mindful productivity resources at rhythmsoffocus.com—because your rhythm matters more than rigid rules.

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#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #FocusStrategies #Agency #Creativity #EmotionalWaves #RhythmNotRules #GentleSelfMastery #PianoAndFocus

Transcript

Sometimes we could just fall right into a project, pick it up, and bam, we're in it. Even when we hit a bump here and there, we can make it through sailing. Other times, sometimes even with the same project, just on some other day, a sense of revulsion can just emanate from it.

Or maybe we barely consider, it doesn't even come to mind, or maybe we start to ruminate about it. Keeps coming to mind and we think, Ugh, I really have to figure that one out. Meanwhile, the deadline creeps along until it crosses that threshold where we finally kick into gear. In either case, whether we're enjoying something or we're trying to avoid it, we go through many of the same steps, and when we know them, we can start to more deliberately take on the things that are difficult or have that, "I don't wanna" cloud around it.

I in fact, count eight different gears in which we can engage something, what I call eight gears of focus.

In a Plane with a Book

Have you ever been on an airplane or some enclosed space? Where you didn't have wifi or minimal distractions, but you do have a book. I imagine somewhere in your life you've been in something of the situation. What happened?

You may well have started to read. Not only that may have even started to get into it and then wondered,

Why can't I always do this?

Somewhere in here you might think you were forced to read 'cause that's all you could do, but I'd suggest that's not really what's happening. In fact, what's happening is that we're supported by the zeroth gear of focus.

There are eight gears of focus that I count starting with this zeroth gear.

When we're good at something, we naturally move back and forth through these gears. Shifting is needed without even thinking about it. Sometimes we support them, sometimes we ignore them and get into a lot of trouble. It's when we get into difficult matters where things really throw us off.

We lose sight of these gears, or we don't even feel them as we naturally progress through them. And that's where we can get into a lot of trouble, like habits that don't take hold and projects that are never followed through.

So today I thought I'd outline these gears.

They're, uh, an important part of the waves of focus course that I've put together for those with wandering minds, ADHD, and beyond. But I think we go through all of these gears, regardless of neurology.

See I have this theory that hard work is emotional work. Complex work requires the management of overwhelm. Even physically threatening work like being a firefighter requires the management of fear. Logic itself is a flow of play through seeking and understanding.

Emotion, and at least the definition I use is that which crests into consciousness, whether by caress or crash.

Our focus is our means of choosing and riding one or some set of these emotional waves that are currently brushing into the hull of conscious awareness. And as these waves continue to move, into crash into us, the distractions, the struggles, the confusion, overwhelm, rage, "I don't wanna" feelings and more we have to still navigate amongst them.

We do this all the time unconsciously. Particularly when we're engaged, enjoying a thrilling video game, we constantly are confronted with the challenge. If we weren't, the game wouldn't be successful. Once we hit challenge, we have a means of thinking through what to do and where to go next to explore limits and follow some story step that we co-create, whether to walk into a cave or take the next headshot.

When we consciously are aware of these steps, we're that much better equipped to address the difficult tasks, the hard, the emotional as they present.

Zeroth Gear - Be

So let's begin with the beginning. This zeroth gear of being. In being we're without intention. We stare off into space, we daydream, we simply exist. It would seem silly to call this anything.

How does having no intention relate to work or play or anything related to productivity at all? In the example of the book on the plane, we weren't forced. No one's forcing our eyes into the page. No one's forcing the words to travel into our minds and embed themselves anywhere. Instead, we move rhythmically back and forth, maybe staring first at the fabric of the seat in front of us.

We might look up at the flight attendant and wonder about who they are. Maybe get annoyed at the leg room. I wonder about the person sitting next to us, back to the pattern on the fabric on the seat in front of us. But at some point, maybe we touch the binding of the book, admire its craft or not at all.

Flip the book open. Look through it. What's in the chapter headings? The words start their way in. Maybe an idea comes to mind and then somehow we're back looking at that fabric, that pattern. What is that pattern? Flight attendants coming back. I wonder when I can say what I want to drink, how long it's gonna take, wait, what do I want to drink?

Wait, if I drink, do I have to go to the bathroom? Oh man. And then you're back in the book. On and on. This goes on. But somewhere along the way in this flow back and forth, something happens and we are in it. We can imagine the characters, the foundational principles, the whatever of the book. What started as slow is now this proper flow.

The stories that come to mind, warm us, anger us, capture us in the world between the words.

We could simply be. And when we allowed ourselves to simply be, we also found a way to tune in. We connected at our pace. In pausing, we can space out and allow thoughts and associations to bubble into consciousness. In being we better perceive and receive.

So much of the work of work is in crafting our contexts to be able to support our ability to be, where the thresholds are raised, to avoid going off into other things, but allowing us to be there with what we decide our intention to be.

So that was our zero gear being.

First Gear - Consider

Now, our first gear is where we begin to relate to our intentions. And intentions about wanting something to be in a different state than it currently is. When concrete, we can see the end state. We know the steps. When it's creative, we cannot see the end or know the steps there.

Instead, a creative intention, something that we have to be creative with, is about discovering something in the act of creating it. Every step reveals something , blurry as that vision may be.

And when we consider, we imagine where we are, where we'd like to be, we allow thoughts to come to mind, we associate in those ideal times where we can allow our associations to come to a standstill or a gentle ripple, simply where no new information comes to mind. We reach that point of acknowledgement. We see those parts as best as we can. We, this moment, as clear as they can be, risks, fears, concerns, they're there, unchanging. Our options are before us, including inaction.

What do I know about this book? What are the chapters? Who are the characters? What can I bring to mind? Where do I think this might go?

Grounding ourselves in our present experience, and the vision that we have gently starts stirring the emotional pools within our mind.

Second Gear - Approach

So zero is being, one is consideration. Two is our approach as we approach. Looking at the book, looking at the project, looking at the garage that's in disarray, whatever the project, somehow we start to feel something. We might even be an immediate hit with a sense of wanting to run away. But if we can stay with that emotion, connect to that tension, that frustration, or whatever the feeling is, doors, windows, portals of challenge might start to appear.

If you've ever done yoga, you might have a physical sense of this.

In approaching a position, you can feel the tension come alive. Paying attention to that tension, you can then slow yourself down, find some simplicity in it, find something small you can do within that tension. If you ignore it well, you might hurt yourself. But in paying attention to it, you start engaging something, growing something, developing something within yourself.

With a book, you might feel overwhelmed, lost in the characters, the ideas confused. We might try to hold on to those feelings of confusion, we can then wonder, what is it that's confusing me? What's overwhelming me? Again, we can slow it down. We can shrink down. We can find some tiny next action, simplify down to a single sentence, if not word.

It's in that slowing down, simplifying, shrinking down, that we can find ease.

And in finding ease as small as that may be, maybe just brushing the dust off that project that's been sitting there forever, we start to find what we can trust. And finding what we can trust within ourselves, we can start finding that place of play, that spirit, that growth that connects to us life.

These windows of challenge, where matters are neither too overwhelming or too boring, where we find that state that can spark and sustain a flow, invite us in where we can start to gently bring whatever ease of simplicity into the next window of challenge.

Third Gear - Visit

So zero is being, one is consider, two is approach.

The third gear is the visit.

I described the visit in depth in episode four. But as a thumbnail sketch here, it means about showing up to something or bringing it to ourselves. We're actually with the material of the work. We stay for, let's say a single deep breath or whatever length of time it takes for you to experientially say that we've been there with the materials, with the intention, with the thing that might further it into reality, standing at that edge of action, where it's as easy to step forward as it is to step away.

When we do that, we heighten our sense of agency, our ability to decide and engage non reactively. We feel the emotions flare at their deepest. Emanating from the work, whether we decide and nudge something forward or not, that stirring of emotion affects us. The unconscious realms undulate, percolate, fulminate back into consciousness.

That "aha" that strikes us as we're driving, as we're walking, rarely happen without us actually being there at some point. The visit is powerful.

Fourth Gear - Start

So zero is being, one is consider, two is approach, three is visit, fourth start.

This is where things begin to manifest. This is also the realm where we might start to abuse ourselves often with the word, "just," "just start."

Why can't I just start? If I can just start, it'll get going.

"Just" the word itself, it's often a shortcut, if not a short circuit that avoids emotion. There's something in the way that the earlier gears are better suited for. When we know what we're doing, when we have practiced some regularity, when we know and are ready for the risk of what manifesting does, that sense of bringing fantasy into reality, dealing with that worry of what would this say about me? What if I can't finish, what if I do terribly? And all the rest of the uncertainty that plagues us, when we've answered those questions into non-existence, starting is powerful.

If we know how to jog. We can start and jog maybe a mile. We can start the dishes, complete them. We can start that book on the plane and see where it goes.

But it takes the practice of having reached that place without which we can flare the, "I don't wanna" feelings.

Fifth Gear - Complete

Zero is being, one is consider, two approach, three visit, four start.

Our fifth gear is to complete. We bind ourselves to some milestone making something happen to completion.

Write the report. Inbox zero. Complete the book. Clean the garage. Check off the task.

Often habits are born and die right here, exhausted by a gear that's far too high for where we are. We take something and say, we have to complete it.

I'm not done until it's done.

Completion is a bind and a place where a wandering mind often tries to start, but often with that injured sense of agency begins to scream, "I don't wanna."

Sixth Gear - Schedule

Zero is being one is considered two approach. Three visit. Four is start. Five is complete. Sixth is to schedule binding ourselves to o'clock. The deadline looms.

Guests arrive at six. I'd like to start writing at four. Maybe I should clean from three to five. The clock ticks. Unsynced as the human made clock might be to our internal sense of time, we can easily be thrown off. So what do I mean by being unsynced? Well, it appears in our questions.

The questions , like, what do you do if you're in the middle of something when you've scheduled it? What do you do if you're tired before it gets done? What do you do when something more important shows up while you're in the middle of it? What do you do if you're not done when time runs out? What do you do if you don't feel like it?

Scheduling can become another way to create multitude of dead projects and habits crushing as this gear can be.

But when we have this well practice, scheduling can be absolutely freeing. I write my newsletter and podcast on Friday mornings at 10. I see my clients at scheduled times of the week. I perform piano on Monday evenings.

These times or places, I do not need to think of anything else, as well carved as they are, they are dedicated islands creating structure for my days and my weeks. But they did not start there.

Seventh Gear - Perform

Alright, so let's summarize zero being one, consider two, approach, three, visit, four, start. Five, complete six. Schedule

Seventh, and our final gear, is performance- do or die. This is where we bind ourselves to some witness or event. We're in the exam, we're at the interview. The consoles on fire. We are the air traffic controller.

Room for thought is a luxury. Now many of us are quite practiced at being here. The deadline has been our means of taking action. Often, this comes out in the phrase,

"I do my best when my back is against the wall,"

but I'd suggest that if that's the case, it's more about being practiced at riding the waves of urgency.

Urgency, leverage this way can be abusive. It can be exhausting, this means of force.

Deadlines do not cooperate with each other. They don't care about illness. They don't care that the bus broke down. Often, if not, inevitably, it leads to some need to apologize, beg for forgiveness, extensions and more.

Meanwhile, the emotions of urgency and fear crush those of creativity play and care.

We can say that limits inspire creativity. How is it that a deadline wouldn't do the same? Poet Wendell Berry, nicely said, "the impeded stream is the one that sings,"

but I would also suggest that for, let's say a flute, that impedance is a carefully crafted one.

Wouldn't it be better to have some practice before a performance? Wouldn't it be better to have more abilities in your repertoire so you don't have to depend on urgency that often impairs, if not crushes, creativity, play and care.

When I sit with my clients and they reach some depth of an emotional moment, it's not like I can say, hang on, lemme go look something up. When I perform at the piano, I can't say, hang on, let me practice this phrase.

Practice brings us to this point of performance where it can excel.

With practice, I can fully be there with my client to hear and reflect maybe choosing some subtle undertone of something informed by my years of experience and study. At the piano, I can allow the emotions to flow into sound, the structures of sinew and muscle hammer and string, all these well worn riverbeds giving power to find new paths forward.

Summary

So reviewing zero is be, one is consider. Two is approach. Three is visit four, start five, complete six schedule, and seven performance.

Each of these gears can be supported. Each of them can be flowed through in a single wave of focus, or across multiple. Between the now, the next and the not now.

With practice, we can support each of these and the flow between them and still not only take responsibility, but also importantly, the agency for ourselves to move forward where and how we can with where we are now.

Music - "On a Dare"

I'll often go through the exercise of creating a piece of music in a short period of time, maybe in a single Practicing my ability to move between memorizing something and improvising it and then re memorizing and then improvising again. Sometimes the end result sticks, sometimes it doesn't.

Today's musical piece formed in such a way as many of them do. It's called "On a Dare". It's written in C Minor, and I hope you enjoy it.

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