Grand Canyon Focus: The Practice of Full Devotion to a Single Task

Meagre Results for Lost Souls
Meagre Results for Lost Souls

My cousin Leo Babauta writes, in part:

Can you imagine giving something your full focus, so that it is like standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon? That is a devotion most of us very rarely give ourselves to.

(click here to continue reading Grand Canyon Focus: The Practice of Full Devotion to a Single Task : zen habits.)

I can easily imagine this kind of focus, what is hard for me is directing focus of my conscious brain at a specific banal topic. What more often happens is suddenly I emerge as from a trance, and realize I’ve spent hours on some topic or another I enjoy. I’ve been working on photos in my digital darkroom until 4 AM, or I’ve been been immersed in some history of the Carthaginian Empire, or I’ve been researching my distant ancestors. My issue is that while performing mundane tasks, like brushing my teeth, or working on my taxes, or washing clothes, or making a living, I get easily distracted, and my mind drifts.

YRMV.