Casual Physics Enjoyer

Most people have a few different interests. But the most conventionally successful ones have two other things.

The first is a single ‘main goal’. Despite having hobbies, most successful people I know have one well-defined goal that occupies most of their brain attention. Examples include starting a company, completing a PhD, making a Youtube channel, or getting promoted quickly.

The second thing is that they can work on this main objective for several years. With stamina and willpower, they can hold deadly attention to this main goal for up to a decade. They keep it top priority. The best analogy I can think of are the working patterns of elite athletes. It is no coincidence that the most successful businesspeople I know have also excelled at sports in the past.

These are examples from my personal experience. But the idea of ‘success from singular focus’ also has been a recent cultural narrative. Read the biographies of the rich and famous of our millennia and you’ll see what I mean.

Unfortunately, I am really bad at choosing and focusing on a ‘primary goal’. I can focus on a single task for a day, but my big picture dedication is lacking. I divide my time equally between physics theory, experiments, writing, coding, my job, and cycling. Even in science, I am trying to juggle four fields, which puts constraints on time I spend on each. And I wouldn’t call myself an expert in anything.

This is bad, because I genuinely believe that in present times, singularly focused people do the best in terms of conventional success. We may have had polymaths in the times of old, but that time has past.

For the longest time, I tried to change my nature. I tried to choose one thing and focus on it for a long period of time. I did this in my early career when I wanted to do a string theory PhD. But nothing sticks. And to be clear, I am not lazy. But I’ve been trying this for years, and it hasn’t worked.

I now think my inability to dedicate to one thing is something I can’t change.

But I still want to maximise my success. So in that case, what’s the optimal strategy?

Most advice says learn from the best. But if the ‘best’ means ‘the most successful people’, I think trying to copy is a very bad idea, especially if the idea of natural traits are involved.

Here’s an example of why. Suppose someone wanted to be the highest earning athlete, with the highest earning sport being football. Does that mean that someone with the height, jumping skill, and aptitude for basketball should focus football? No, because it would be better to be the highest earning basketball player than a mediocre football one. Even if the top football player earns the most in theory.

The best strategy for one person should be conditional on their nature, and not necessarily the globally optimal path of others. So now, I am starting to accept that I am not a singularly focused person. But, I am trying to create an advantage that exploits this somehow.

Here are my strategies.

I am trying to find new and interesting intersections between my different pursuits. I hope the novelty will make up for my lack of focus. For example, I thought biosecurity and physics were separate things, but now I am investigating the physics of bio-aerosols. I am trying to use my writing and video editing skills to enhance my communication of my science experiments. I am trying to use the scientific method to enhance my bike touring. I am trying to use my coding and theory skills to work on physics formalisation in Lean. I am trying to design better experiments through my previous obsession with theory.

I try to have pursuits that allow for flexibility and are broad, but are amenable to a single ‘label’. This at least makes me feel focused and specialised. Having writing as a hobby allows me to explore anything I want, but I try to lump everything into Substack. My job as a trader is extremely varied, but I am happy to stick to the profession as a whole. I also try to focus on scientific fields that are of wide scope so that I can call myself a ‘scientist’.

Having diverse interests means that my emotional ups and downs are reduced, which allows me to take more risks in each pursuit. If one thing doesn’t work out, then I least I have the mental reassurance that I can work on other things, which makes me bolder. I find that this risk taking is especially useful in science and in blogging.

Finally, I’m make lots of to-do lists so I can come back to something later (possibly years later). Ironically, I think the fact that I rotate between lots of things reduces my chance of burnout any one thing. Suppose I focused on something on its own. I probably would burn out and give it up after 5 years. But if I worked on it for 1/5th of the time for 30 years, I’ve managed to work on it for 6 years in the long run! So, I’m aiming for the long game, and hoping that I can just outlast the focused people in terms of time.

Exploit your nature!