THE FOCUSCAP STORY
Hi, I'm Hannes, product designer and artist from Berlin, Germany.And as I'm highly creative and hyper-aware, thinking about things from different angles and outside the box, I've often struggled with structuring my own projects and getting "important" things done... Yes! I'm easily distractable. And this probably would have been a real benefit as a cavemen hunter back in prehistoric times, haven't it?
PROBLEMS WITH FOCUSING
Especially with mentally demanding tasks I've easily procrastinate on more interesting things that lay around the room or by the slightest movement. This "strange" behavior will dramatically increase when working with others, albeit I love the social aspects of being around people. I didn't yet know about the effects of the peripheral vision, the internal alarm system ('fight or flight'), that have been saving our lives for millennials.
THE STARTUP
This was also the case when working in my last position as the 'Director of Product Design' at one of Europe's biggest furniture startups – more than 60 people on my floor, no dividers or any place to hide and myself placed like everybody else into this uncontrollable constant overflow:
People chattering, pinging you with some quick questions, someone on his way to the toilet or printer, you name it: our new working reality.
Sure, I've got some nice creative things done.. but I've always felt, I delivered – as Cal Newport in his NYT-bestseller "DEEP WORK" would called it: 'Shallow Work' - bland, standardized results for my standards but never my real creative potential (Deep Work) where I needed FLOW.
REMEMBERING 'FLOW'
And I knew this amazing feeling of total immersion from so many past experiences when being laser focused like in a tunnel, with all my capabilities effortlessly and magically falling into place
and things literally 'flowing' into existence.
HEUREKA - THE MOMENT
So I finally bought me some noise-cancelling headphones, it helped a bit. But thank god! one precious moment I've remembered my time when writing my diploma thesis (I'm an artist and back at the Bauhaus, we partied a lot and created cool stuff in the workshops) and most of the time we creatively found our way around almost any seminar and lecture.
So when I've struggled on texts for my thesis for one long painful week in the library, reading slowly and forgetting everything, because students in the library where moving, constantly,
So instantly a lightning bolt hit me: I've made my way to the next optician, bought me cheap glasses, popped out the lenses and tacked me small cardboards next to each eye - and YEW!!! - these two little fuckers solved everything: 'Mind like Water' (a term I've resonated so much when reading "Getting Things Done" (GTD). – Alas it was still my practical part of the thesis "The Cozy Furniture Collection" that got some recognition.
THE FOCUSCAP IS BORN
So back to the open office nightmare at our startup: I instantly bought me a visor, stapled 2 black cardboards to the bill, et voilà – the FocusCap was born.
I saw the potential and over the last 3 years I've developed and patented a properly working product with integrated, collapsible blinders and the cap is even foldable for easy, flat storage.
NOW TAKE YOUR LEAP!
Now, you decide whether to temporarily block out the visual noise and get valuable stuff done, quickly and super-focused - or - to participate in some refreshing, communicative collaboration or chitchat with your coworkers. The applications are endless (please watch my above video)
START WITH WHY (The Impact)
I assume a lot of people like me (This is to the Millenials! ...and I'm still in – *1980, tada!) currently question our social and corporate roles in society and what a meaningful life shall look like – so do I.
And slowly we all rediscover one interesting fact: that in the first place we are simply humans, emotional creatures with extraordinary senses (btw this is why Social Media is hijacking us so well - Cal Newport).
So in one of our long philosophic nights with Philip, my super-veterinarian friend, we came up with this simple statement:
"Humans are mammals and they are obviously kept in the wrong environment."
Hey! - We are run by the same genetic programs like 200.000 years ago and lost track of our own nature - in fact, we work against it.
We have been consistently brainwashed and rewarded to constantly think, compete, cheat and achieve – preferably in a 'team'. Instead that we feel, collaborate and create in a small familiar tribe like 200.000 years ago – most of the time even without any language! (Robert Greene).
And now, we, the human race, are entering a new era, the age of digitalization & connectivity. And according to Joshua Cooper Ramo's book "The Seventh Sense" our new major plague won't be cancer (fuck cancer! I deeply mean it!) BUT – it's insanity.
So the FocusCap as some other valuable inventions I came up in the past, shall work as our analog weapons, to tackle the real boss!
I believe in the impact that such simple tools like the FocusCap could have, in assisting us through these distracted times.
Let's reconnect our minds back to our senses to finally unleash the possible magnitude of our actual creative potential.
– for a bright future!
Hannes (Inventor) & Leo (Founding Partner)