l saw a quote this week that made me really ponder how I organize my days.
Spend a handful of hours a day going fast. Crush a gym session. Do deep work on a project you care about. Spend the rest of the day going slow. Take walks. Read books. Get a long dinner with friends. Either way, avoid the anxious middle where you never truly relax or truly move forward - Charles Miller
This really struck a chord with me. The thing that ties together my fast and slow times is usually a singular focus on something. When I am going fast I am programming without distractions or lifting really hard at the gym. When I am going slow I am usually spending time with my wife and daughter on a walk or making dinner with them. Either way the time that I find most valuable in my day and in my life is the time that I am fully devoted to doing one thing.
The periods when I find myself in the “anxious middle” are generally when I am distracted, waiting, or unable to focus. This usually involves periods of checking Hacker News between slow moments at work or scrolling through my phone while hanging out on the couch. Either way the periods where I am living anxiously tend to be when I am distracting myself from doing something meaningful. No surprise that the things that cause me to sit in the anxious middle are generally technologies that suck my attention.
It is important to make uninterrupted focus time, whether that be on work or on doing something slow and meaningful. Attention is our greatest resource. The more we command our attention, the less time we will spend in the anxious middle.