I’ve found that I lose focus too often over the years; actually, to say I’ve lost focus would be the wrong term, instead I should say, “I’ve misplaced my focus.” I never stopped focusing, but my focus shifted so rapidly I failed to accomplish anything. I don’t feel too bad about it, it sucks, but it has already happened and I can’t change the past.

Over the past month, or so, I’ve managed to focus on learning Ruby and Rails, but I’ve also realized that I was spending time on things that no longer mattered. I was wasting my life on things that don’t amount to much. It was inevitable, eventually something would have to give, and with waning interest the choices were made much simpler.

I’ve cut what I read daily on Google Reader by 60%, by cutting out things I should have cut much sooner like TechCrunch and Mashable; I can still do more here, but paring back things with less volume doesn’t feel like a necessity. For the past several months, I had been getting overwhelmed by the end of the week, and would spend 4-5 hours on Sunday crunching through 1000+ items.  

Also, I’ve also all but fully retracted from Friendfeed. I still post stuff via the bookmarklet and a rare sarcastic comment or two a week, but I don’t visit the site more than once or twice a week. When I visit it just reminds me that “It’s dead, Jim.” There are dozens of people I love and care about there, but I’ve lost interest in the shell of a dream we shared. Hey, we had a good solid run with it though, nearly 3 years without any active development and it’s only just beginning to collapse.

Where will I expand and go from here. I don’t really know. I guess I’ll probably start using the time to chew through my backlog of ideas. Here I am, nowhere near where I had expected 5 years ago, when I left high school. I don’t know if I’ve grown that much, since then, but my appetite surely has. It’s time for me to enjoy the journey and let go of the scars of the past.