Occupation and Preoccupation

Here’s Jony Ive in his Stripe interview:

What we make stands testament to who we are. What we make describes our values. It describes our preoccupations. It describes beautiful succinctly our preoccupation.

I’d never really noticed the connection between these two words: occupation and preoccupation.

What comes before occupation? Pre-occupation.

What comes before what you do for a living? What you think about. What you’re preoccupied with.

What you think about will drive you towards what you work on.

So when you’re asking yourself, “What comes next? What should I work on?”

Another way of asking that question is, “What occupies my thinking right now?”

And if what you’re occupied with doesn’t align with what you’re preoccupied with, perhaps it's time for a change.