Focus vs tokens

I’ve chatted with a few folks this week with an interesting problem.

They’re vibecoding a lot of things, telling me how productive they are, how many things they’ve made.

But when asked what their focus is, the answer is less clear.

And when asked how much of their week is spent on that focus, the answer is murkier still.

Making things, when hard, is a wonderful exercise in focus. If you shouldn’t make it, you don’t. If it’s a “not for right now thing”, you don’t. If it’s not in line with your current relentlessly-focused priority list, you don’t. And “don’t” is better than half-making lots of things that didn’t benefit from your focus, care, commitment, and voice. “But I need to use my token allowance” isn’t a good trade for focus.

And when things should be made? It’s a “right now thing”? It’s in-focus? It being hard doesn’t even matter: you do it anyway. With focus, care, commitment, and your voice.

You’ve always been able to do whatever you want. The tokens aren’t what’s worth stewarding… Your focus is.