I’ve recently had a personal revelation (aka learned the hard way) about how critical it is to keep your mind’s context clean and focused.
We’ve all heard it a million times:
🔹 “You need to focus!”
🔹 “Do one thing at a time!”
But let’s be honest…
We don’t really learn from other people’s advice—we learn from fucking up ourselves first.
Only after I repeatedly messed up my focus, struggled, and felt my own frustration, I finally admitted:
“Yup, those guys were right.”
What Happens When You Fuck Up Context Switching?
Let’s say I have a critical bug to fix at work.
Deadline is coming, and I need that pull request ready before the standup.
Now, if I actually want to get this shit done:
🚫 No checking YouTube analytics.
🚫 No tweaking my blog post.
🚫 No scrolling Threads.
🚫 No reading the news.
🚫 No checking stock prices.
🚫 No listening to YouTube videos while making lunch.
I shut down everything.
Even my wife knows—no long discussions, no distractions, nothing.
My brain needs to be in one place: solving that goddamn problem.
Because if I don’t? If I allow myself a tiny distraction?
💥 Boom—my brain switches context.
Instead of thinking about the code issue I need to fix, I’m suddenly thinking about:
🎯 How fucking cool it would be to learn archery.
🧠 What Joe Rogan and Mark Zuckerberg think about AI replacing software devs.
📈 Whether I should have bought that damn Nvidia stock two years ago.
My brain switches modes.
And guess what? Switching back is HARD AS FUCK.
The Problem with Context Switching
Here’s the real kicker:
Once your brain jumps into a new, exciting, relaxing context, your original task feels like absolute shit when you try to go back.
- The critical code issue? Suddenly feels boring as hell.
- That bug fix? Feels painful, annoying, frustrating.
- You feel lazy, demotivated, and just want to stay in the “fun” mode.
I used to wonder why this happened.
But now I realize—it’s because my brain was already in an interesting, relaxing, enjoyable mode.
And then I’m forcing it back to a stressful, complex, problem-solving mode.
It fucking hates that.
How I Finally Learned This the Hard Way
I faced this problem over and over.
I tried to process my emotions, observe my frustration, and finally understood:
👉 I am my own worst enemy when it comes to focus.
It’s not that I’m lazy or unmotivated.
It’s just that my brain doesn’t like switching back and forth.
So now, I block everything out when I need to focus.
After I’m done? Fine, reward yourself.
Watch that ML video, check stock prices, or binge-watch another episode of Squid Game.
But not before.
Final Thoughts
Maybe this post helps you.
Or maybe you’re like me—you’ll think it makes sense now, but only truly believe it once you fuck up yourself. 😂
Either way, I wanted to share my experience.
Anyway, it’s 6:49 AM on a Sunday.
I’m on my second cup of coffee, and it’s finally snowing in Toronto. ❄️
Haven’t had a proper winter in a while. Cheers, brothers and sisters! ☕
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