Making Focus Work
How was your summer? Do you feel like you have more energy, and a renewed sense of what your few most important things are? (or is that just me? I've used the slower time to think, a great deal. I highly recommend it. I learnt a lot) Great! Now what will you do differently to make sure you focus your time and energy on those most important things?
If you slot back into your routine, doing the same things in the same way you did before, you'll allow incoming claims from other people to dictate where you spend your time, and the things that you now know matter most will be left for "when you get to them". Very quickly they will become a wish list. Don't let that happen to you. Tap back into that sense of clarity you have about what really matters: the things that will move the needle at work, and those that make you feel like you are living the life you want. Harness the energy you've replenished, and put a plan together for how you'll make progress on your most important things. I can absolutely help you with this if you'd like. Here's how to get started:
Write your top two or three things down. Lest you forget, you know?
Remind yourself of what they are often: set them as a reminder that pops up on your phone every couple of weeks, or keep a note on your desk, or ... you get it.
Block out an hour in your diary to work out a plan.
For each of your top things, consider what you want to accomplish within the next 6 - 12 months, or whatever timeframe makes sense to you.
Then consider how much time you need to dedicate per week / month to achieve that.
Add up the total time spend per week / month. Whatever time is left is available for anything else.
Go through the list of everything else you are already working on, and add up the time you spend there.
Decide which topics have to come off your everything else list. You cannot afford to do them all. For the things that get dropped, decide whether they can wait, be done by someone else, significantly reduced in scope, or culled.
There will always be other things that come up. When they do, ask yourself how much of your time and attention they deserve, and whether you are the best person to handle them.
But you probably already know all this. I'm not telling you anything new. The catch is that at least one or two of the actions on this list will be difficult for you to do in the context of real life. You know that you should do these things, but there isn't the time to think, or you can't let go of the compulsion to respond to the call of other people, other challenges, or you simply end up sliding back into old habits. Let me help you. This is important.
