Success Challenge: Focus
By: Terri Zwierzynski (see my bio) | Leave a commentMore posts by Terri Zwierzynski | Follow Terri Zwierzynski on Twitter
Q: “How to stay focused?”
A: One easy way to get and stay focused is to have less to focus on!
As solo entrepreneurs, we usually have waaaay too much to do. Keeping a list of all those tasks and projects can make order out of the chaos — but that same list can also be quite long and overwhelming. The same goes for when you have lots of ideas, but find yourself circling and not really getting any of them done!
Here’s a trick that works for me…I pick no more than three items off the “master” list at one time to focus on. I choose what to work on based on what will have the greatest chance of bringing me income the soonest. Once I’ve selected, I put the master list away. I can confidently clear my mind of the everything but those three projects or ideas, and let go of the fear that I’m forgetting something.
The result: suddenly, there’s a lot more room in my brain to focus on those three items! And without all that other flotsam floating around and getting in the way, I sail through my projects much more quickly.
This is what works for me — I’m sure others have different, but equally effective ways of staying focused. Please share them in the comment section below!
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About the Author
Terri Zwierzynski, MBA (UNC-Chapel Hill) became a corporate refugee in 2001, after 15 years of employment with technology companies big and small. A non-conformist at heart, Terri Z is now The Solo-CEO: a self-employed internet marketing consultant to solo entrepreneurs and a grassroots promoter of the "solo entrepreneur lifestyle". She runs Solo-E.com, the resource website for solo entrepreneurs which attracts thousands of visitors monthly from over 100 countries on six continents.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
In this day and age, everybody seems to be multi-tasking. Time is money, as they say. Still, no matter how quickly we want to finish a task, we need to make sure we’re doing quality work. And how about enjoying the whole experience? It’s like doing a lot of sightseeing in one day and never really remembering what each stop felt like because we were too much in a rush to appreciate anything.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Julie — I know I, for one, suffer from this — I’m so achievement-oriented that I find it difficult to relax and enjoy the journey. Thanks for the reminder!