I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about focus as something I should protect.
Pick a direction. Stay with it. Keep building. Don’t get distracted every time something new looks interesting.
That advice makes sense. Especially when you are someone who likes ideas. New projects can be very convincing in the beginning. Everything feels possible because nothing has become difficult yet.
But lately I’ve been thinking about the other side of that.
What happens when staying focused starts to make the work feel smaller?
Not because the project is bad. Not because I’ve run out of things to say. More because I’ve been looking at the same questions from the same angle for a long time.
I noticed this recently with my own creative work.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about AI, how we use it, how it changes the way we think, and how to stay mentally involved instead of letting the machine do everything for us. I still care about all of that. Probably more than before.
But I could feel myself wanting to look somewhere else for a while.
At first, I treated that feeling like a problem.
Maybe I needed a better video idea.
Maybe I needed a new format.
Maybe I needed to push harder and find another angle inside the same subject.
That is usually what I do. If something starts feeling flat, I try to fix it without leaving it.
This time, I started wondering whether leaving it for a little while might actually be the fix.
Not quitting.
Not throwing away everything I’ve built.
Just shifting my attention.
A Different Kind of Curiosity
A new project has been sitting in the background for a while.
It’s called Curiously Miscellaneous, and even the name tells you something about why it feels different.
It isn’t built around one subject.
It is built around curiosity.
The idea is simple. Curio, a small animated character, asks me questions. I answer from lived experience. Sometimes that might be about the early internet. Sometimes old technology. Sometimes something completely different.
The topic can wander.
That is part of the point.
And something strange happened when I started working on it.
I felt lighter.
Not because it is easier. In some ways, it is more complicated. There is animation, voice work, storytelling, editing, and figuring out how Curio should react to what I actually say.
But the thinking feels different.
I am not trying to explain a concept.
I am remembering.
I am telling stories.
I am laughing at things I had forgotten.
I am making something where I don’t always know where the conversation will go before I start.
That difference matters more than I expected.
Different Projects Ask Different Things From Us
I think I used to treat creative projects mostly as containers for ideas.
This project is about AI.
That one is about writing.
This one is about storytelling.
But now I’m noticing that projects also ask different things from us as creators.
One project might ask for analysis.
Another asks for memory.
One asks for structure.
Another asks for improvisation.
One asks you to explain.
Another asks you to notice.
And if you spend too long working in one mode, maybe it doesn’t matter how many new ideas you generate inside it.
You are still using the same part of yourself.
That might be what I was feeling.
I wasn’t out of ideas.
I was tired of using the same creative muscles.
That is a very different problem.
The Fear of Looking Away
There is still a part of me that worries about changing focus.
Creative work online comes with a lot of invisible pressure to stay consistent.
Keep posting.
Keep feeding the channel.
Keep the momentum.
Don’t disappear.
Don’t confuse the audience.
Don’t let the algorithm forget you exist.
And some of that pressure is practical. If you stop publishing for a while, things can slow down.
But there is another question I think we ask less often.
What happens if you keep publishing when your curiosity has gone somewhere else?
You can probably do it.
You can keep producing.
You can make a schedule and follow it.
You can come up with topics because topics are not actually that hard to find.
But I’m not sure that is the same as making work you are genuinely interested in.
There is a difference between consistency and momentum.
Consistency can be mechanical.
Momentum feels alive.
I think I’ve been learning that I care more about the second.
A Break Is Not Always an Ending
This is where language gets tricky.
When someone says they are stepping away from a project, we tend to hear something final.
They are quitting.
They are rebranding.
They are moving on.
They are done.
But sometimes a break is just distance.
And distance can be useful.
When you stand too close to something for too long, you stop seeing the shape of it.
You see details.
Problems.
Tasks.
Deadlines.
The next thing that needs to be finished.
You stop seeing why you started.
I’m beginning to think that moving toward something else for a while can create enough distance to see the original work differently when you come back.
Not because the new project replaces the old one.
Because it changes you slightly.
You notice different things.
You build different skills.
You get interested in different questions.
Then you bring all of that back with you.
At least, that is what I’m hoping.
What the New Project Is Already Teaching Me
Curiously Miscellaneous is already making me work differently.
I am scripting less.
Listening more.
I am leaving room for my own speech to be imperfect instead of trying to make every sentence clean before I record it.
I am thinking about timing, character reactions, and the rhythm of a conversation rather than the structure of an argument.
I am also spending more time with memory.
Not memory in the technical AI sense.
My memory.
What did dial-up actually feel like?
What did it mean to use a computer before being online was normal?
What did we think the internet was going to become?
What did we completely fail to imagine?
Those questions are doing something different to my brain than the questions I usually ask about AI.
And strangely, I think that may eventually make my AI work better too.
Because creativity rarely stays neatly inside the project where it started.
Inspiration Usually Comes Sideways
I think this is the part I forget.
We often talk about inspiration as if it should come from going deeper into the thing we are already doing.
Read another book about the subject.
Watch another video.
Research another angle.
Study someone else working in the same field.
Sometimes that works.
But some of my best ideas have come from things that had almost nothing to do with the project I was working on.
A conversation.
An old photograph.
A memory.
A strange website.
A piece of music.
Something I saw while doing something completely unrelated.
The connection happens later.
Maybe that is because creativity needs input that does not already know where it belongs.
If everything you consume is related to the same project, the ideas start arriving pre-sorted.
You already know what box they go into.
There is less friction.
Less surprise.
Less chance for two unrelated things to bump into each other and create something new.
Changing focus interrupts that.
It adds unfamiliar material back into the system.
I Don’t Want to Optimize Every Creative Season
There is also something else I’ve been noticing.
I don’t want every phase of my creative work to be optimized.
I don’t want every project to immediately answer questions like:
Who is this for?
What is the niche?
What is the content strategy?
How does it connect to the funnel?
What is the upload schedule?
What is the growth plan?
Those questions have their place.
But if I ask them too early, they can make a new idea feel old before I have even explored it.
Right now, I want this new project to stay a little miscellaneous.
I want Curio to ask questions.
I want to follow them.
I want to make something because I am curious what happens when I do.
That might not be the most efficient creative strategy.
It might be exactly why I need it.
And What About the Work I’m Stepping Away From?
I’m not leaving it.
That is important.
Creator in the Loop is still a project I care deeply about.
The questions behind it have not gone away.
If anything, I think I need this distance because I want to come back to them with more energy.
I have already started thinking about what the next season could become.
Maybe broader.
Less focused on large language models themselves.
More about the AI we encounter in ordinary life.
The systems we don’t always notice.
Recommendations.
Suggestions.
Automated decisions.
The quiet ways AI is becoming part of how we move through the world.
But I don’t want to rush into that just because I can see the next direction.
For now, I want to let it sit.
I want to make something else.
I want to see what I bring back.
Maybe Focus Needs Seasons
I still believe in focus.
I just don’t think focus has to mean staying in the same place indefinitely.
Maybe creative focus works better in seasons.
For a while, one question takes over.
You follow it.
You build around it.
You go as far as you can.
Then something else starts pulling at you.
Maybe the mistake is not following that pull.
Maybe the mistake is assuming that moving toward something new means you failed to stay committed to the old thing.
I’m starting to see it differently.
A change in creative focus might not be a detour.
It might be part of the work.
And maybe when I come back, I won’t return to exactly the same place.
I hope I don’t.
That might be the whole point.
