Since I opted out of my full-time O’Reilly gig, I’ve really been able to focus on just a handful of projects. Actually, twice as many as I had at O’Reilly, so the key word must be focus.

Focus is used for what I call “going deep.” You have to go deep to really understand new concepts. Once you’ve learned something well, you abstract things with something like a mental DSL. Then, unless you’re lazy, you move on to the next thing to learn.

Without focus, this doesn’t happen at all for me. Or I learn things but they almost feel like bad habits.

Not that there’s anything wrong with O’Reilly, but part of why I left was because I was starting to feel lazy there. It didn’t matter how hard I worked, the tasks were just too small. Continually interrupted with short tasks, I was never able to really focus on something and go deep.

Another issue is something that I call “two gigantic interruptions, twice a day” or what is normally referred to as a commute. Even if you have a simple commute, you aren’t going deep when you know you have to pack up in an hour. (Now I’m blending into what a guy I call “the Tony Robbins of hackers” said the other day.)

Anyway, contracting let’s me focus. I feel smarter and get more work done because it’s more fun. And working smarter inevitably leads to better gigs, in my experience.