The Power of Focus
Success is built sequentially, a little at a time by focusing on the task at hand. Gone are the days when multi-tasking was thought to reap the most benefits in a quest to get more done. Turns out trying to do more than one thing at a time completely diminishes the quality of each of the things you’re trying to accomplish. This leaves you feeling quite scattered indeed. Not to mention studies have shown that multitaskers were basically lousy at everything!
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Did You Know?
Office workers dealing with distractions lose approximately 30% of their day trying to refocus on the needed task at hand.
Alternately if you’ve ever gotten lost in a project with steely focus you’ll know what I mean. Your work at hand becomes your only task, making for a much better quality outcome and taking much less time to complete.
Remove Distractions to Improve Focus
For some of us, multitasking is almost second nature because we allow distractions to enter the stream of our projects. Consequently by redirecting our attention to answer a phone call or answer an email concentration is lost making it harder to pick up where we left off. Alternately, by limiting distractions and focusing on one thing at a time, much time is saved by not needing to refocus over and over.
Narrow it Down
Another deal breaker for achieving success is not narrowing down and focusing on what you want to achieve. Here again, focus comes into play because you simply cannot do too many things and expect to do any of them well. Importantly, narrowing your focus down to the one thing that you know best helps you become more successful in that area.
Personally, I can say that I’m super guilty of trying to do too many things as well as juggling too many subcategories of those things. If you’re anything like me you’re just too darn interested in too many things to focus on any one thing. But I do find that when I am disciplined with myself and focus on one thing at a time it’s easier to accomplish my set goal, not to mention my results are so much better!
Action Steps to Creating More Focus
1.
Focus on What is the Most Important Thing For You
This would be a good time to take an accounting of all the things you want to accomplish, segmenting them into categories and sub-categories. Next, determine how all these things fit together or decide if they fit together at all. Then take time to really think about each item on your list. To see, first of all, how it makes you feel, and secondly if it’s really necessary to continue putting your focus on.
Most importantly, determine how your passions and talents merge because you’ll find your passions can lead you to spend a great amount of time working or practicing at what you most enjoy. Additionally, your skills improve in your passion area leading to better results and ultimately you become an expert in the field.
With your list in front of you choose the one thing that is your burning passion or at least make sure it’s your favorite way to pass the time. A project or hobby that when you are engaged in it you lose all track of time.
Say goodbye to the busyness of all the unimportant tasks, narrowing it down to one task that is meaningful to you. Because at the end of the day success isn’t a game won by those who do the most. It’s won by those with steely focus!
2.
Create a Success List to Increase Productivity
Is your life driven by to-do lists? In other words are you guilty of spending too much time planning your life as opposed to actually living it?
In his book ‘The 80/20 Principle’ Richard Koch defined the concept of the “vital few and trivial many”, otherwise known as Pareto’s Principle. It states “The 80/20 Principle asserts that a minority of causes, inputs or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs or rewards.” In other words, the majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do, meaning you can achieve amazing results with fewer actions than you realize.
With all your tasks in mind start paring down some of your to-do’s, understanding that all tasks do not matter equally. Suddenly your to-do list becomes a success list as you pare down to the 20% that are the most important for your success. By taking the time to prioritize and focus on your to-do list in this way you’ll have a better understanding of your most important items fo focus on.
At this point you’ll be able to look at your priorities with new eyes, choosing which item on your list deserves your undivided attention right now!
3.
Create New Success Habits
You’ll need just enough discipline to instill new habits. In other words, regularly working on something until you have trained yourself to act in a certain way, or develop a new habit. At this point, your focus on your important task at hand feels like second nature or something that is somewhat on autopilot. This is the premise of doing the right thing, not necessarily doing everything right.
At this point, you’ll appear to others to be a very disciplined person rather than just someone who regularly works on one thing out of habit.
So how long do you need to discipline yourself to develop the habit? Results from a research study done at the University College of London determined that 66 days gets you to the “sweet spot’ where your discipline becomes a habit. While you’ve likely heard that it takes 21-28 days to develop a new habit, apparently research doesn’t back this up so don’t give up too soon. Once you’ve set your new habit you’ll find more ease in the doing of it and less stress associated with your task-related goals.
A best practice is to build only one new habit at a time. Once you’ve established your new habit then build another by repeating the discipline needed if you find it appropriate to do so.
Conclusion
Taking a look at your biggest priorities and developing new habits to get your goals met may take some adjustments and patience with yourself. But remember that there’s only one way to eat an elephant….one bite at a time… So be easy on yourself as you work towards your dreams and enjoy the journey!
If you’re looking for a good planner to help pare things down and help with your focus check out the Best Self Journal. It’s the best planner I’ve found to date to get your life in perfect order. They also have project planners, wall calendars and more to help you get your life organized so you can focus on the things that are most important in your life!
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