Focus

One thing I do look back on fondly was how incredibly focused we were. Resources and time were so tight that you could feel the weight of all the things you weren’t working on. You had real conviction that the thing you were doing was the most important thing.

To pick a somewhat trivial example, at fireside chats with Mark (the predecessor to the... See more

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.

“There’s nothing I revile quite as much as a dilettante,” Seinfeld told GQ , “ I don’t like doing something to a mediocre level.” Escaping mediocrity requires focus. “You have to dedicate yourself to these great things,” he added. “And I don’t believe in being good at a lot of things—or even more than one.”

At the core, strategy is about focus, and most complex organizations don’t focus their resources. Instead, they pursue multiple goals at once, not concentrating enough resources to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.

“My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn’t know they had.” — Edwin Land