As a little boy, I would become lost in whatever I was doing. I would get so intently focused on a book, or puzzle, or game, or whatever, that nothing from the outside world could intrude.
My mother would be scolding me for ignoring repeated requests to come for dinner, and I would protest that I only heard the last, high volume one.
As an adolescent, I could go for an entire weekend without eating because I got too focused on something else to remember to eat.
During the COVID fascism, when I finally got to stop wasting my time in the cubicle farm and work from my home study, several times one of my boys would come to me and ask, “Dad, are you almost finished?”
I’d look at the time and see it was near, or after, 8pm. I had worked a 12 hour day without noticing, so intently focused was I on my tasks.
This is one of the powers, and one of the dangers of single minded focus.
When you can be so intently focused on one thing, you can achieve amazing results. Unfortunately, you can also be so focused that you lose sight of other factors which are equally important; food, family, other tasks that need doing.
I came by the power of single minded focus naturally, I have the Engineer’s superpower; ADHD. Although the words deficit and hyperactivity are right there in the name, there is another symptom, which is the intense focus I’ve been speaking of. It’s a powerful aid to Engineers and computer programmers, but the bane of the existence of Daddy’s.
The challenge for you is to learn the power of intense, single minded focus.
The challenge for me is to not allow it to take over my life.
