Donnie Bryant: Winning the Never-Ending Battle for Focus

In a recent newsletter, I asked subscribers to share some of their questions and frustrations. Here’s one of the responses that came in:

“I’d appreciate some advice about staying focused when you have 101 creative ideas are flowing at once or there are other demands on one’s time – family, for example. How does one stay focused and remain balanced?”

This is one of those ongoing struggles most entrepreneurs and professionals have to deal with. I’m embarrassed to admit how often my schedule doesn’t work out the way I’d like it to. It takes constant effort to give my wife and kids the attention they deserve – and they still get the short end of the stick too often. Thank God they’re patient and forgiving!

Nevertheless, since this is a tightrope I’ve been walking with some degree of success for some years now, I do have some thoughts about how to focus and obtain balance. Hopefully you’ll find something I say helpful.

Set Yourself Up for Victory

Here are my 3 best tips for winning the never-ending battle for focus:

1) Set priorities
You really have to have a big-picture view of what you want to accomplish in the long term. Be very clear. Be honest with yourself about what you want (that’s not an easy task for many of us).

Take the time to define the direction you’re going and where your ultimate destination is. This will give you clarity about the decisions you have to make and the options you have to weigh. Will this get you closer to the end you have in mind?

What’s the mission you’re on? When you know what your purpose in life, what you were created for, it’s easier to make decisions in the light of that knowledge. It’s also helpful to have a mission that really excites you. Whenever you get bogged down in the drudgery of the everyday grind, step back and think about the quest and the glory that comes as you get closer to its completion.

This is really important because when you have 101 ideas flowing in your mind, you have to choose what to throw away, what to take action on, which options take precedence and which can sit on the back burner. How do you decide? By knowing your mission and determining which ideas come into proper alignment with it. By analyzing each proposition to see what advances your agenda and what’s simply an attractive distraction.

Write all your ideas down (trusting yourself to remember them all can lead to major disappointment, believe me). Rank each one in terms of how much impact it will have on the progress of your mission. Start working the list from the top. Feed in new ideas as they come, not at the bottom of the list, but based on how they rank in terms of impact. Don’t put new ideas at the top just because they’re exciting, either. Stick to the plan.

2) Set boundaries
You can only take on so many projects at once, no matter how talented you are. You need to be tyrannical with time management. You have to get comfortable turning down proposals, throwing away ideas and saying “no” to people sometimes.

Again, if you are dedicated to your cause/mission/quest, this will help give you the strength to make those tough calls.

You must decide the things you will not do. One thing I guarantee will not work well for you is to take every opportunity that comes your way. You’ll wear yourself out doing things that don’t move you closer to your chosen end result.

This can be scary. There’s often a sense of worry that the project you’re turning down just might be the one, that the idea you’re not following up on will become the next billion-dollar idea. I don’t know a remedy for that. But, I’ve found that as long as you’re working on your personal mission and within your pre-determined boundaries and values, you can have an abiding feeling of confidence that you’re doing the right thing.

Just as importantly, you have to make time for the things in life that really matter to you. Family for example. I’m saying this at the risk of preaching more than I practice. Figure out the time when you do your most effective work and schedule a block of that time for uninterrupted focus. Also, set aside a block to spend uninterrupted time with your family. Don’t let work encroach on that time, and try to keep your mind from staying at work during quality family time.

3) Set goals and deadlines
Specific shorter-term goals make sure you’re moving down the path toward the completion of your quest.

When you go to Mapquest for directions (do people still do that?), you have several steps between the point of origin and the destination. Those details make sure you get from A to B. In the same way, it’s helpful to establish goals along the way to help you maintain sharp focus over the long haul.

Big dreams and lofty visions can be ambiguous when it comes to the details. That’s one of the reasons goals are so important. They give an immediate sense of direction; without them you tend to just wander in the general direction of your final destination.

You need deadlines to ensure you keep moving and to help you measure your progress in concrete terms. Besides, there are few more powerful motivators for the self-directed entrepreneur than a fast-approaching deadline.

As the saying goes, a goal is a dream with a deadline.

Have a productive week!