The Power of Focus: Turn Information into Meaningful Knowledge
Deep consumption of information … free from distraction … focused on the present moment … reflecting … connecting … deriving meaning. How often has this happened lately?
Most of us experience focused information consumption much less frequently than we should. We are lured by the power of technology to make us efficient information skimmers, multitaskers, and hyper-communicators. Often times, this efficiency is for the better; it allows us to be more informed, connected, and productive with our time. However, when short, fragmented mechanisms become our sole means of information consumption, we start to loose our ability to make important connections and see the big picture. This leads to shortsighted decisions and “status quo” work production. Life-changing decisions and high-value creation requires focus. There is a time and place for Twitter, RSS feeds, web aggregators, and news headlines, but we must also make time for focused, deep consumption of information.
Meaningful Knowledge
The goal is to be able to turn information into meaningful knowledge. For this post, the term “meaningful knowledge” is something that goes beyond the mere understanding of a concept or fact. Meaningful knowledge comes from the synthesis of many facts and concepts into a new and highly personal understanding that allows you to make good decisions, see the world differently, and create value in the world (whatever that means for you). This is big picture stuff, and it will provide you with frameworks and filters for organizing the rest of your life.
A Focused State
To turn information into meaningful knowledge, we must get into a focused state that allows us to consume, and reflect on, lengthy content (e.g. books, large magazine or blog articles, and long videos or podcasts). Sometimes, a collection of related content is the key to making important connections. Here, more than anywhere, focusing on relevant content while blocking out the rest is critically important. All too often, “more is better” thinking leads us to try and get to a little bit of everything we find, which can in turn cause us to lose focus on what is most important.
Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction
Leo Babauta has a nice ebook called focus – a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction. He does a good job explaining the importance of focus, and he provides lots of suggestions on how to achieve it. Since he has freed this ebook from all copyrights, I have taken the liberty to aggregate it using Fogo Media’s Fogozine Mac Application – check it out here. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“It’s not technology we should be afraid of. It’s a life where we are always connected, always interrupted, always distracted, always bombarded with information and requests. It’s a life where we have no time to create or connect.”
“When you consume information, you’re helping your creativity as well — you find inspiration in what others have done, you get ideas, you gather the raw materials for creating.”
