Discover eight distinct “gears” of focus—stages we moves through, from simply being, to considering, approaching, and ultimately performing at our best. Honoring each gear transforms frustration and procrastination into creative flow and agency. Drawing parallels to music, emotional waves, and mindful play, this episode invites listeners to see hard work not as a battle, but as a dance with emotion, context, and self-compassion.

• Learn to recognize and move through all eight "gears" of focus, from daydreaming to performing

Every episode features an original piano composition—this time, enjoy “On a Dare” in C minor. Subscribe and find more mindful productivity resources at rhythmsoffocus.com—because your rhythm matters more than rigid rules.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #FocusStrategies #Agency #Creativity #EmotionalWaves #RhythmNotRules #GentleSelfMastery #PianoAndFocus

 Sometimes we could just fall right into a project, pick it up, and bam, we're in it. Even when we hit a bump here and there, we can make it through sailing. Other times, sometimes even with the same project, just on some other day, a sense of revulsion can just emanate from it.

Or maybe we barely consider, it doesn't even come to mind, or maybe we start to ruminate about it. Keeps coming to mind and we think, Ugh, I really have to figure that one out. Meanwhile, the deadline creeps along until it crosses that threshold where we finally kick into gear. In either case, whether we're enjoying something or we're trying to avoid it, we go through many of the same steps, and when we know them, we can start to more deliberately take on the things that are difficult or have that, "I don't wanna" cloud around it.

I in fact, count eight different gears in which we can engage something, what I call eight gears of focus.

Have you ever been on an airplane or some enclosed space? Where you didn't have wifi or minimal distractions, but you do have a book. I imagine somewhere in your life you've been in something of the situation. What happened?

You may well have started to read. Not only that may have even started to get into it and then wondered,

Why can't I always do this?

Somewhere in here you might think you were forced to read 'cause that's all you could do, but I'd suggest that's not really what's happening. In fact, what's happening is that we're supported by the zeroth gear of focus.

There are eight gears of focus that I count starting with this zeroth gear.

When we're good at something, we naturally move back and forth through these gears. Shifting is needed without even thinking about it. Sometimes we support them, sometimes we ignore them and get into a lot of trouble. It's when we get into difficult matters where things really throw us off.

We lose sight of these gears, or we don't even feel them as we naturally progress through them. And that's where we can get into a lot of trouble, like habits that don't take hold and projects that are never followed through.

So today I thought I'd outline these gears.

They're, uh, an important part of the waves of focus course that I've put together for those with wandering minds, ADHD, and beyond. But I think we go through all of these gears, regardless of neurology.

See I have this theory that hard work is emotional work. Complex work requires the management of overwhelm. Even physically threatening work like being a firefighter requires the management of fear. Logic itself is a flow of play through seeking and understanding.

Emotion, and at least the definition I use is that which crests into consciousness, whether by caress or crash.

Our focus is our means of choosing and riding one or some set of these emotional waves that are currently brushing into the hull of conscious awareness. And as these waves continue to