When Your Focus Is Out of Focus

Big, Middle and Little Sis all wear glasses and so regularly have their visual focus checked and corrected as need be. But that is not what we had in mind to talk about when we chose “focus” as our word of the month for October. Rather we were thinking about where we choose to spend our time and attention day to day and how to make sure we’re clearly focused on the right things.

Would You Repeat That Please?

By Little Sis

I love to sleep, and you would think that after a long at day work, sleeping would be a welcome relief. I don’t consider myself an insomniac, but it definitely takes me a while to relax. I find I am often trying to figure out a way solve to world hunger, or wondering why the sky is blue and planning my outfit for tomorrow, all before drifting off to sleep.

Then again, when I am awake I can’t seem to just focus on one thing at a time either. My “problem” is that I have difficulty staying engaged in conversations. Often my mind wanders off, and I am thinking about something else when someone is talking to me. I am certainly not trying to be rude, but I can’t stop thinking about things and then I have to ask the person to repeat what they just said.

Luckily the people who know me best can see when my mind starts to wander and snap me out of it. After 25+ years of marriage, my husband knows that when I get a blank look on my face, the gears in my head are going a hundred miles a minute, and he stops talking, takes a breather and we do a reset.

My co workers are perhaps the most unfortunate victims of my wandering ways. I sit at a computer all day, and on occasion people like to come over and have a chat. I will start off giving the person my full attention, but in short order, I can feel my mind start to wander. There are just so many other things vying for my attention, like how the spider crawling up the wall got all way up to the second floor? Or why are there are cracker crumbs under my desk, when I don’t usually eat crackers?

Usually I keep on working while they are talking and try to type while staring at them. Eventually I do float back into the conversation, and try to add my two cents worth, but my two cents worth is often out in left field. By this time, I can tell they are getting annoyed with me so I have tried stopping my typing while I stare at them, but they usually just move on. Frankly, I’m not sure why they would ever try again.

As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, my focus deficit pervades my entire life. Recently, I couldn’t figure out how to download an App on my phone, so I called tech support. I was dealing with a person who was very pleasant, and very patient with me, and I was trying hard to focus on their instructions, but then I started to drift off, thinking that I could solve the problem myself. While the technician was talking, I started pushing all kinds of buttons on my phone, at the same time wondering where the person lived and what was for dinner. I finally ended the call and promptly locked myself out of my phone, and had to call them back. I have many similar examples, but I think you get the picture.

I know that I have to make a concerted effort to stay in the moment, as Middle Sis would say, and give the situation all of my attention. Alas, even as I am writing this, I can’t help wondering why we have so many pens in the house that don’t write and do I maybe have ADHD? Hmmmm……..

A Real Housewife

By Middle Sis

OK, I admit it. I watch the Real Housewives. That said, I do have my standards and so I only watch Orange County, New York City and Beverly Hills. I find I am captivated from week to week wondering if Ramona will finally get kicked off the New York City show for being one of the most clueless human beings on TV and whether Erika on the Beverly Hills show will ever discover waterproof mascara so she doesn’t spend every episode looking like a frozen faced racoon when she cries over her messed up life…again. Despite how this sounds, I can’t help it, I am hooked.

But recently, when I found myself scrolling through the list of the many other Real Housewives shows, to see if I might want to watch another one, I realized I needed a change in focus. With COVID having us spend more time at home it was so easy to slip into the habit of watching mindless television, and I had definitely fallen into that trap.

As I saw it I had two choices – I could keep watching TV and change what I was watching, or I could turn off the TV altogether and put my focus elsewhere.

Regardless of which choice I made, step one was to wean myself from watching Real Housewives. With New York City several weeks away from starting, Orange County’s start imminent and Beverly Hills wrapping up with their “tell all” episodes, I figured it was the perfect time to do this. Could I resist? The answer is sort of…. I did watch the first “tell all” episode but have not watched since (honest). I am happy that I was able to do this despite wondering if Rinna was ever going to admit that she is a mean girl and if Dorit was finally going to drop her fake British accent.

And what am I doing to fill this spare time you may ask? Well, let’s just say that I am on a first name basis with the paint people at Canadian Tire and am refinishing my third piece of furniture. I am also crocheting up a storm – very handy with Christmas coming.

As for ditching the TV watching altogether, I’m not quite there yet, but I am now more discerning in the programs I choose. Shows like the Great Canadian Baking Show and Call the Midwife where there is nary an F-bomb and everyone manages to stay sober for the whole episode are now my focus. And I am finding my way back to doing more reading and that in my books (no pun intended) is a good thing!

Lets Just Take a Break Folks

By Big Sis

Fortunately, I am blessed with superior intelligence…Ha! Ha! Just kidding! Actually, my mind is perpetually in a bit of a cluttered state, so I rely heavily on my long and detailed daily to do list. I get great satisfaction working my way through the list and my Type A personality revels in a sense of accomplishment as I cross items off.

Recently, however, I found myself in a situation that derailed me from my list, turning my day upside down. That’s when it became glaringly obvious that I am quite capable of what I like to call “ultra focusing.”

The drama unfolded when we decided to upgrade our internet modem. A simple task, one might think but in fact it caused no end of problems. Try as I might, I could not connect our printer to the modem, and believe me, I tried. After three hours of fumbling through several YouTube videos, my focus became entirely centred on the problem, to the exclusion of everything else. This was now a personal challenge and my to do list was all but abandoned.

In the interests of my mental health and to relieve my hunger pangs, I finally took a break but couldn’t focus on anything else, so I went back to the “scene of the crime.” Two more fruitless hours passed and it was getting dark but I was determined. When my husband asked what we were having for dinner, I realized that I had gone a bit too far on this, so exerting supreme self control, I shut it down.

Are you wondering if I could sleep that night? Of course not, although I finally nodded off with what I thought was the perfect solution and I eagerly awoke the next day, ready to take it on again.

My perfect solution did not pan out and I was forced to admit defeat. Enter the tech person at Microsoft online chat. I think that experience ranks pretty high on my list of frustrating life events. His explanations were based on the assumption that I knew my way around a computer, blindfolded, hence communications were a bit tense. When he began to treat me condescendingly, I exited the chat without a thank you or good bye. More wasted hours that I would never get back.

Next up a phone call with a Microsoft technician who was very polite and earnestly tried to help. Nope, it still wasn’t working. Thinking that our internet provider might be of assistance, I connected on the phone with a technician who also tried everything he could think of to solve my problem. Final result, our internet provider would send out a technician for a home visit. Number of additional hours wasted? Too many to count.

And the moral of the story? Well, focus can be a good thing, but it can also border on mania and an unhealthy fixation that consumes us. At least that’s the moral of my story. My solution isn’t particularly innovative, but I have since instigated time limits on my to do list. It’s sort of working out. Redirecting my focus has been a real challenge and no doubt will be ongoing. I wonder if there is an ” Ultra Focusing Support Group” out there?

Footnote: Yes, our printer was ultimately connected to the modem. The technician looked at the situation, connected two cables and voila! our printer was printing. Time it took to solve the problem? Five minutes at best. 🙂

Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold

So, like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, where Goldilocks finds one bowl of porridge is too hot, one is too cold and one is “just right,” rest assured the Sisterhood will continue their quest to find a focus that is “just right” for them!

We plan on doing a new post every Monday so stay tuned for our next one entitled “Did You Ever Wonder?”