“One day, I lay on the beach, using puffy dried seaweed as a pillow, trying to read, and I started to angrily reproach myself for not being relaxed, for not being focused, for not starting to write the novel I had been planning for so long. Here you are in paradise, I kept saying to myself; you ditched the phone; now focus. Focus, damn you.

“I thought back to this moment when, over a year later, I interviewed Professor Gloria Mark, who has spent years studying the science of interruptions. She explained to me that if you have spent long enough being interrupted in your daily life, you will start to interrupt yourself even when you are set free from all these external interruptions. I kept looking at things and imagining how I would describe them in a tweet, and then imagining what people would say in response.” ||Johann Hari, Stolen Focus

We’re getting to that point in the year, whether you’re in the southern hemisphere cuddling up a little more in your hoodie of an evening, or, like me, heading to the end of an academic year with a mixed emotion.

Your Provocation comes a whole day late. I was reminded of this three times today by Heads of School who asked over lunch, and by email, where it’d gone.

One asked if I was alright.

Another asked if I was still alive.

It’s that time of year, where focus is getting harder for me. I don’t know about you. It’s getting harder, at least, on the stuff that I’ve had focus on all year around.

The strategies.

The work.

The goal-setting.

The support, love, and attention doted on our pretty amazing customers.

Trying to do my best, too, by our world-class team.

My focus this last four days has eased from business-as-usual into the business-as-totally-exceptional.

My last Board meeting of the year with on my own school board, responsible for 5000 learners (Friday).

My eldest daughter’s last morning at Conservatoire and then her school Graduation Ball (Saturday).

Her deployment to the airport for a week with her pals in Corfu (Sunday, 3am).

Mrs Mc’s birthday celebrations and a brief lunch out, plus the joy of (always!) unexpected Father’s Day cards and chocolates (Sunday).

Submitting the final concepts for a brand new school campus on the other side of the world (Sunday evening).

It’s all rather embarrassing, really, when you consider I’ve been punting an amazing year-long masterclass on FOCUS, alongside my colleague Kate Wadsworth.

The revelation is this: focus isn’t about doing one thing at the expense of everything else. It’s about knowing the right thing to focus on at the right time. Jings, it’s hard to work out.

But I hope the idea is worth waiting a day for. And that you’ll forgive a rather tired dad for this idea arriving 24 hours later than scheduled. (And no, we’re not going to refund your hotel and meals while you waited for it…).

Wherever you’re at with your week, I hope you enjoy a moment of focus every day, where time slides, and you’re doing the right work - whatever it is.

And if you want to spend 2025-26 with me working out the best way through the fog, just join me.