A simple practice to reclaim your focus

Photo by Kyrylo Kholopkin on Unsplash

A few weeks back, I hosted the first Sacred Hours — an intentional co-working session for those (myself included) who’ve been wanting to focus on the important but not urgent. The kind of work that often gets buried under day-to-day busyness. We had three deep-focus sessions, and while each of us made varying progress, the real insight came later — on my walk after the session.

I found myself wondering: what keeps us from making time for this kind of focused, meaningful work?

One answer stood out (apart from being around others who are trying to do the same).

It’s the discomfort of slowing down. Of focusing on just one thing and leaving all the other tasks behind. Most of our speed is born from socially imposed urgency. And if you really look at it, you’ll often find — it’s false and mind-made.

If you know me, you know I love drawing analogies. So let me bring in two: from scuba diving and meditation.

Lesson One: Scuba Diving

In scuba diving, one of the key skills is maintaining neutral buoyancy — floating steadily underwater without rising or sinking. You achieve this through a fine balance of air in your buoyancy jacket and how you breathe.

But here’s what’s underrated: your ability to stay still.

During a dive dedicated solely to practicing buoyancy, our instructor gave us a simple-sounding task:

• Find your neutral buoyancy.

• Then stay put — no moving your arms or legs.

• If you float up or sink, adjust.

Sounds easy. But it wasn’t. Even after achieving it, I found myself twitching. The water is always subtly moving, and that movement triggered a reflex: do something. I feared that stillness would lead to drifting — up or down.

Later, my instructor said, “The best divers are the ones who can take their time — to move slow or even stay still. The ones who are always kicking their fins, moving fast, they’re just using momentum. And they miss the magic — because they can’t stop when they find a fish worth observing.”

Lesson Two: Meditation

Something similar shows up in sitting meditation. The two most common challenges people face?

• It’s hard to sit still.

• They can’t stop their thoughts. (I talk about how to manage this here)

When we’re used to urgency and constant doing, it becomes uncomfortable to just sit. Even when people do try, they often keep fidgeting — moving their hands, legs, neck.

In Vipassana meditation, you’re invited to sit completely still for an hour (except to straighten your back or neck). S. N. Goenka says: “Even if you feel an itch, keep meditating. You’ll see — it goes away on its own.” And it does! The first time I experienced that, it felt unbelievable.

What I’m getting at is: slow seems to be the real deal.

I love Amit Pagedar’s writing. One of his lines I keep coming back to is: “Go slow to go fast.”

You hear this in music too. When learning a new instrument, teachers advise: slow it down. Precision first. Speed comes later. Maybe that’s how you access flow too — in music, and in life.

I experienced that through scuba diving. And now, I’m trying to apply it to work.

Because we often create our own urgency (when it’s not externally imposed), simply because stillness feels so uncomfortable.

It’s the fear that we must do something — so we don’t float away, so we don’t fall behind. The fear of not being where we think we should be.

🤨Are you noticing rebuttals, “ifs” and “buts” coming up as you read this? That might be the anxiety kicking in — the fear we’ve internalized from a world that’s constantly in motion. Is it your fear, or a socially imposed urgency, inherited because everyone else is working hard?

I fiercely believe that while we’re here to experience everything including pressure and fear, we’re not meant to live in them all the time.

When we begin to reject that pressure, something softens. Clarity returns. Like muddy water that clears on its own — if you just let it be still.

So here’s my invitation:

Reject the pressure. Choose your own speed.

A simple first step?

Pause Before Responding (courtesy Amit Pagedar)

Create a small space between the stimulus and your response.

A phone rings. A message arrives.

Don’t act immediately.

Just pause.

💭Reflection: What changes when you respond slowly — not from speed, but from presence?

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