In Focus

“I have a photographic memory, but the pictures are blurry.”

When I was a senior in high school, I took a photography class as an elective. It was fun. We started by learning analogue photography, making a simple camera using cardboard and duct tape, loading it with note card-sized pieces of photo paper. Some pictures turned out, but most looked cheap and certainly archaic.

Then we moved on to film cameras, and we learned about exposure, shutter speed, and focus. The results weren’t immediate - we had to develop the photos ourselves in the dark room, which meant two things: 1) it was important that we knew our camera settings as we were capturing our photos so that they would turn out, and 2) there was a considerable amount of trial and error, cycling between capturing photos, developing them, seeing the results, learning from the results, and applying what was learned.

In the dark room, there was no instant gratification. To see the results of your work, you had to wait for the picture to come into focus.

Sometimes the picture turned out. Other times it didn’t.

Over the past 15 years, social media has made us comfortable with instant gratification. I’ve noticed this in myself. I want to see immediate results in my creative work, and when I don’t see results, I become frustrated. Because of this, in the last few years I’ve developed a working habit of short but intense periods of productivity followed by long periods of burnout on a project.

It’s neither fun nor healthy.

Through several months of self-evaluation, I now understand this pattern. Even better, I’m taking steps to break out of this cycle.

First, I’m reminding myself to notice the small accomplishments. It’s easy to be so determined to reach the end goal that we neglect all of the little steps we need to take to complete a project. When we do this, we only see one big unfinished task. It’s demoralizing and - from what I’ve seen in myself and in others - it’s a sure way to seize up, lose momentum, and lose motivation.

Instead, we should remember to celebrate our little victories. There is the old saying: “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” I get it. But I buy into a different saying: “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” Cleaning half of the kitchen is better than not cleaning it at all. Exercising once per week is better than never exercising. Drawing a rough pencil sketch is better than never drawing. Publishing a short blog post is better than never publishing one.

Second, it’s important to keep the final goal in mind. We should never lose sight of our larger goals, because if we do, then we become lost - washed away in a sea of short-term successes that never carry us to the shore of what we want to accomplish.

If we’re clever, we can create a healthy ecosystem from these two points. A strategy I picked up from game development which can be applied to our own lives is to use the little victories to fuel our motivation to complete our bigger goals. This is known as a positive feedback loop. It’s a method to encourage healthy growth and progress towards what we want in our lives.

Let’s say the kitchen is dirty. It’s been dirty for two months. You haven’t had the time or the energy to clean it, but today’s the day! Instead of seeing the whole kitchen as one big overwhelming mess, try breaking it down: “First I’ll clean out the fridge and throw away any old or stale food.” Great! 20 minutes later, the fridge is lean and clean. It feels good having finished that task. Riding the high of that accomplishment, you keep at it: “Next I’ll do the dishes so the sink is clear.” Another 30 minutes go by, and the sink is empty. The kitchen now looks much better, and you likely feel much better seeing less of a mess and having completed a couple of tasks. So on and so forth.

This is the positive feedback loop in practice. In my own experience, it helps me to achieve both clarity and focus in my life - personally and professionally.

Is it always perfect? No.

There is still a considerable amount of trial and error. But that’s part of the process, just like developing photographs in the dark room. By actively changing my process, my habits, and - most importantly - my mindset, I’m now experiencing more trial and less error.

I’m gaining clarity.

I’m gaining focus.