AppliedProsperity.com

Economics of Thought & Focus

Some might think of Henry Hazlitt's book, Economics in One Lesson, an odd one to classify as a self help book.  As I pick up the book again and again, I'm here to say that is indeed a tool for personal development.

On a Side Bar 'Question & Action' Challenge, here at my blog, I repeated a challenge I'd first read in Tim Ferris' book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, which was "If you only had 2 hours each day to produce, what would you do?"  Then, something crazy happened.  I was affected by a personal energy crisis; I was constantly tired and couldn't seem to stay awake very long.  Also, when I was awake, my focus was increasingly scattered; it became difficult to stay on task. 

The great thing about this challenge in my life was that I came to see how there is a definate economy of thought and focus.  In other words,whether talking about thoughts or actions, time focusing on one thing comes at a definite cost of not focusing on other things; and there are always consequences attached. 

With a tendency toward distraction anyway, I had to find a way to progress in my life and in business by first realizing this economic principle and then applying reason to the principle.  I had to be very careful in what I chose as my priorities, then give my energy and focus to those priorities appropriate to my desired outcomes.

So, what did I do?  Of course, my first priority was my health; finding ways to increase my energy.  This in itself became frustrating to me as one day I might spend my energy going to a doctor's office and find that such actions pretty much spent all the fuel I had for the day.  My afternoons were spent with my two young children, tho who was looking after whom became the question on certain days (multi-tasking became very uneffective with the limited productive ability to focus.  Dad at the computer was seen by the lil' tikes as license to pull pants down and run outside in the yard; or for big brother to turn on the water and hose down little sister). 

After doing what I could do for my own health, I determined that an action-plan needed to be established for business and for other things in my life.  To help exact my productive time for productivity, I made a list of things I could do when I was overwhelmingly tired, such as showering or walking - things that were tough to fall asleep while doing, but things that needed to be done. 

Having only an hour or two each day for business, I had to determine one or two steps that could be taken to have the most impact on progression.  One other consideration was this: How can I enlist the assistance of others?  Better said, How can I provide enough value that others would willingly want to participate in what I'm doing?

This has been a profitable experiment, albeit an uncomfortable one.  It may be easy to see how dollars can be misappropriated in a business that has a bit of capital to start when comparing it with a shoe-string operation.  A capitalized start-up can certainly become a shoe-string operation in a short time.  We can identify that a shoe-string start-up cannot afford financial mistakes, and may not have the ability to even make financial mistakes.  It may have to rely upon creative thinking to best move a project forward.  Whereas a capitilalized start-up may have an idea for progression and invest dollars without the same amount of thought warranting the move. 

Now, here's a similar economic relationship in my own life, only using thought, energy, and the ability to focus as capital.  One lesson I'm learning from my experience is how important focused energy is, and that if I continue to utilize these economic principles in my planning, thinking, and doing while I'm improving my health, how much more LIFE there is available to me.  What will I be able to do with the extra thoughts, energy, and focus when my business remains streamlined and prioritized.  In my sleepy frustration and momentary scarcity of productive time, I've found even greater abundance.

--Dave Charbonneau, C.E.R.

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way...

"...You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun."
--Pink Floyd

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