Focus on Work: this simple principle determines my work success.
Work Focus
When I am the most successful at work, I focus on the job. I don’t focus on my issues with other people. I don’t focus on my feelings of frustration with my job or my life. I don’t focus on jobs that I will have to do later. I don’t focus Internet surfing or social media mingling.
Failure to Focus on Work
I don’t always focus on my work. I wish I could say that I did. However, I am human. I do have distractions. I sometimes goof off. Sometimes, I’d rather focus on anything but work. To quote a former business partner, “There’s a reason they call it work.” It is not always fun. Work is a priority I set for the things I need to do to experience the rewards of my work. Work is what I am supposed to do when I am at work. Sometimes work is pure fun, and I am completely focused on my work. I am completely engaged in my work.
Sometimes I have to put some effort into focusing on what I am doing at work. I have to work at working. When I don’t focus on work at work, my work suffers. My productivity goes down. Time flies by, the day ends, and I miss the rewards that I could have had from focusing on work.
Work Aperture
The aperture on a camera is the setting for how wide the shutter opens when a photographer takes a picture. The width of the shutter opening determines the distance at which objects are in focus. A wider opening will result in images at a distance being fuzzy or out of focus. On cameras with a barrel that shows the view directly through the lens of the camera (Single Lens Reflex or SLR), the setting is the f-stop on the barrel of the camera. A wider aperture setting puts the focus of a picture on things that are close to the camera. I need to use a wide aperture setting so that the work right in front of me is in focus and so that the work at a distance is out of focus.
The Productive Aperture
When I am working, I can’t allow myself to ruminate on what might happen. I have had a lot of problems. Most of them have never happened.
Therefore, when I am working on a long-term plan, I use a wide aperture setting to keep my work in front of me in focus. At work, ruminating about the future as though I am gazing at a distant mountain range in a picture is a waste of work time. To be productive, I have to focus at events in the future when I can put them down on paper or schedule them on my calendar. At work, I keep an f-stop 2.8 setting (the widest possible setting) on my lens. I only need to focus on the things on which I am taking action.
