Get focused, to get results, in the age of distraction

There is so much going on.  At times it seems overwhelming and can cause moments of panic or resignation, which you just don’t feel like you can keep on top of everything.  What happens if you miss “something” that is important?

It is exhausting the number of things that can distract you from achieving your business goals: email, twitter, competitors, phone calls, new technologies, the economy, articles, (and the list goes on).  It can be difficult to sort through all this information and activity to find those bits that are really important to know or do.

Panic sets in when you wonder how you will keep across everything, as well has finding time to run your business or do your job.  It can be overwhelming.  Then resignation that you are not going to be able to do this, so you might as well do nothing, sets in.  The job of this can seem enormous and it can feel like the distractions are controlling you.

The worst outcome is that you have a whole day, week, month or year on being “busy” with these distractions and not have done the things you needed to so that you achieve your goals.

Here are five ways for sorting the wheat (the good stuff) from the chaff (the noise):

1. Be very clear on your business plan.  If you don’t know what your business is (and isn’t), who you customers are (and aren’t) and your measurable goals then this is the place to start.  This is your business roadmap.  Use them to guide your business decisions.  Keep them handy at all times, communicate them to your staff, and use visual cues to remember them.  Keep coming back to them when you are making decisions about what to do next, what articles to read, what staff you need to hire.  Anything that aligns to these and helps you achieve your business goals is the wheat; anything that doesn’t is the chaff and needs to be thrown away.
2. Have an action plan.  Know what are you focussing on each day; week, month and year and write to-do lists to achieve the goals that you have set out.  The yearly “to-do” list is your business plan and this should include all the activities that you need to do over the course of the year to achieve your goals.  Review the tasks that you currently have on your to-do list.  (If you don’t have one then write a list of all the things that you are working on or think you should be working on at the moment.) Do they align back to your business plan?  If there is anything on here that doesn’t, cross it off.  This is a hard thing to do, but remember that you time is precious and needs to be spent on tasks that will support the achievement of your business plan goals.
3. Prioritise.  Once you have made sure that the tasks on your “to-do” list are all contributing to your achieving your business goals then go through the list and sort them into four different categories.  Sort your tasks into four categories (using Stephen Covey’s time management matrix, from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.)   1. Urgent/Important, 2. Not Urgent/Important, 3. Urgent/Not Important, 4. Not Urgent / Not Important.  The focus on completing Category 1, manage the tasks of Category 2 and don’t do anything with the tasks in Category 3 and 4.  Avoid them altogether.  Focus is about making choices and while this is difficult at first, practise will make it a habit.
4. Remove distractions. As discussed there are many things that can distract you every day.  These distractions derail you plan and while there will be things that come up unexpectedly that require your immediate attention, most distractions can be removed or ignored.  Find a quiet space.  Turn off the computer and use a notepad.  Allocate time in the day regularly to do your planning and let everyone know that this is your routine.  Transfer you phone to someone else for one hour.  Switch on/off the radio.  Close your door.  Make use of applications like focus booster (http://www.focusboosterapp.com/)that are designed to boost your concentration and productivity.  The distractions can be many and sometimes in pleasant disguise, so you need to identify them and remove them.   Note:  If you are regularly being distracted by urgent and important items that are not in your action plan you need to look at why they are happening.  Generally, this can be solved with a bit of forward planning.
5. Review regularly.    Regularly reviewing your business is something that needs to be done as standard.  Start with your business plan.  Make sure there is a way to measure each of the activities and create a performance dashboard.  Review this weekly or monthly to see how the business is tracking against your agreed priorities and goals.  The best focus in the world is not relevant if it is not yielding the results that you need for your business.  Your effort needs to be expended where you achieve maximum returns.  If you are not seeing this happen then you need to go back to the beginning again.  It is recommended that a thorough review of the business happen every three months.

Above all, be smart with your time.  It is a valuable commodity that needs to be used wisely.  Do the things that are important and (practise) ignore the things that don’t add value.  You will feel empowered and in control.  And you will be surprised by just how much you get done now that you have eliminated the “busy work” and the positive results that your focus has delivered to the bottom line.