Founder, Business Development guy, passionate about the intersection of personal and business development. I write here about the startup to scale-out journey.

Jun 4, 2016

Focus … You need to focus if you want to succeed

How many projects have you got on the go? Think about it and make a list. Most people have a bunch of categories and activities going on in each…

Work — projects, training, certifications, management, team development
Home — renovations, travel, finances, community
Family — Travel, eduction, parenting, care giving
Pastimes — clubs, hobbies, health, fitness, volunteering

It probably runs to more than 10, it’s often 20 or more and you may even have a list of future projects that you’d like to have a go at.

But how many projects have been dragging on for a long time? How long have you been planning to get that certification at work, to plan that family trip to the states, to complete your kitchen remodelling? A year? Two? More?

So many projects get started, but often our rate of finishing is really poor.

Starting projects is exciting, you get the dream about the end result, think about how life will be better once your done. But execution is slow, you find unexpected challenges, you need to learn new skills or find more time, you loose sight of the end goal and get bogged down. Sure — it would be good to have the recognition at work for gaining that certification, but there is 10 weeks of study to get there. Of course — we’d love to go to Disneyland, but we need to save for months to have the cash to go.

And what do we do when we get bogged down in the detail? Start a new project! It’s great — we get to go back to the planning stage and enjoy the dreaming that comes before work. So then we end up with 20 projects on the go! Plus the future project list. And nothing done.

What’s missing?

Focus.

Focus lets you just do one thing. Or maybe a few. Focus says you can pick the projects you want to do and only do them.

Focus says ‘For the next three months we will work on three things until they are done, to the exclusion of anything else’.

But wait, we say. I have 20 projects on the go. How can I drop all of those for three months and just work on a few?

But there’s the rub — they weren’t going to get done anyway? We’re just swapping 20 projects being given a fragment of your attention for 3 projects getting heaps of attention. Things get done. Faster.

By focusing on a few things you give yourself reset button. When you get stuck and the temptation of a new project comes up you can press the button, check your focus and reject the new project until you’re ready to look at it.

Use focus, for completing that certification, for planning that holiday and to be cooking in that new kitchen before you know it.

And you’ll be ready for the new projects too.