Almost Everyone I’ve Met Would Be Well-Served Thinking More About What to Focus On

Focus accelerates the accumulation of skills and accurate world models. In open-ended domains, such as writing, relationships, or business, there is nearly endless room for skill growth.

What they all have in common is some version of: 1) prioritize exploration early on and 2) dial up exploitation as the situation becomes more clear. If you are new in a city, it makes sense to meet as many people as possible. If you find someone you love hanging with early, you will have years of happiness. But if you are about to leave, it makes m... See more

It was a multi-armed bandit problem. This problem, which, under a different name, had first been studied by the biologist William R. Thompson in 1933, centers on a rather surreal thought experiment. A gambler faces a slot machine (“a one-armed bandit”), except this machine doesn’t have one arm—following some twisted dream logic, it has k arms, arms... See more

When I was younger, I was never this lucky. It is partly because I was less skilled. But it is also partly because I would interrupt the nonconscious processing back then. Unintentionally, I would tell my brain to focus on something else—a conflict in a TV series I was watching, for instance. I would watch an episode before bed, and the cliffhanger... See more

Why do some people achieve so many of the things they want, and others not? Do people have a fixed budget of things they can achieve in a lifetime? It doesn’t seem so. Rather, it seems like our achievement budget is a function of the number of priorities we have. Interestingly, it seems to be a nonlinear function. Meaning that if you go from 4 prio... See more

our achievement budget is a function of the number of priorities we have.

But for me, as a person for whom narrow focus is against my instincts, the most remarkable thing about it is how rich it feels. My life these days is small and boring. I bicycle across the same fields every day, I notice how the wind turbines turn to face the wind, I rarely travel, and I spend my spare time staring at a Word document. Annie Dillard... See more

One of the things Steve [Jobs] would say [to me] because he was worried I wasn’t focused — he would say, “How many things have you said no to?” I would tell him I said no to this. And I said no to that. But he knew I wasn’t interested in doing those things. There was no sacrifice in saying no [to those things]. What focus means is saying no to some... See more

The gambler needs to learn new knowledge about the machines and simultaneously use what they have already learned to optimize their decisions. In the literature, these two activities are referred to as exploring and exploiting. You can’t do both things at the same time. When you explore, you are pulling new arms on the bandit trying to figure out t... See more

People tend to gravitate to different sides of the explore/exploit spectrum. If you are high on openness, like I am, exploring comes easy. But it is harder to make a commitment and exploit what you’ve learned about yourself and the world. Other people are more committed, but risk being too conventional in their choices. They miss better avenues for... See more