The power of focus

You have 168 hours in a week. So do I. Seven times twenty-four. Whatever you want to achieve, you have to fit the work into those hours.

Now look at all the things you say you want to master. Business. Game. Fitness. Another language. Another project. You have a long list, you have enthusiasm, and you give a little bit of attention to everything. Then you wonder why you aren't getting particularly good at anything.

The problem starts with that little bit of attention. You keep spending it on things that aren't your priority. Individually, each one seems perfectly reasonable. Together, they eat your week.

Eliminate the things you can't focus on

Focus requires you to give things up. That is the uncomfortable part. You may really want to do those other things. They may be interesting. They may even be useful. But you can't master all of them simultaneously.

If a goal matters enough for you to pursue it seriously, give it the time it requires. The other ambitions have to wait. Keeping them all active and occasionally doing something about each one is how you end up permanently getting started.

This applies well beyond seduction. I am interested in what mastering game teaches us about mastering other areas of life. You learn something about how you practise, where you waste time and whether you actually do what you said you would do. Those questions follow you into business, fitness and whatever else you take seriously.

The subject changes. You still have to concentrate long enough to get good at it.

You keep paying to get started

Think about writing something. You're working through an argument, you know where you're going, and then you stop to do another task.

When you return, what happens? You read the last paragraph. Then the paragraph before that. You try to remember what you were thinking. Ah, right. Now you remember. Now you can carry on.

That process takes time and mental energy. Do it once and it doesn't seem like much. Do it throughout the day and you spend a substantial part of your time finding your place again.

There is often physical preparation as well. You need to get somewhere, find the documents, get your equipment ready. Every time you stop and start, you go through some version of that process again. Five minutes on this and ten minutes on that can make you feel busy while leaving very little uninterrupted time for the thing you wanted to accomplish.

Think about a session of game

This is something I have discussed with the Hustler Elite. You get dressed, get your things together and travel into central London. Before you've approached anybody, you have already put time into the session.

Suppose getting ready and travelling takes an hour. If you then spend an hour practising, preparation and travel have taken half of that two-hour block. If you stay for a substantial session, that same journey supports more actual practice. You haven't made the journey shorter. You've stopped repeating it so often for so little work.

Then there is warming up. Perhaps you need a few interactions to get into the groove. Perhaps approach anxiety is getting in your way. If you leave as soon as you start feeling comfortable, you have barely used the state you spent the beginning of the session trying to reach.

My point is to get a good amount of practice under your belt when you go out. Give yourself enough time to settle into the work and keep going. A proper session gives you something to review afterwards, too. You have more than one awkward opening to obsess about on the way home.

Regular practice still matters

One long session doesn't finish the job. You have to return and practise regularly. In the podcast, I talk about going out several times a week and getting substantial time in each session. The principle is concentration and repetition.

Apply it to the time you actually have. If you work a job, your free time is limited. That makes the choice of what to practise more serious. You can't put every ambition into the same evening and expect each one to receive your full attention.

Choose the work before the session starts. Make the necessary preparation, then stay with it. If you're writing, write. If you're practising game, practise game. Give yourself a chance to get past the startup process.

This is one of the reasons I wrote Universal Laws. I wanted to understand the principles behind getting good at something and apply them beyond seduction. Focus is a foundation for that work. Without it, you can know a great deal about what you should do and still never spend enough time doing it.

Look at your next week. Choose the goal you are actually going to work on. Remove the competing tasks from that session. Then turn up and give it your attention long enough to get some work done.