“Keep your eye on the ball.”

This is classic, sage advice suggesting that we must know what’s important and remain focused on it.

And in today’s world it is completely meaningless.

The idea, of course, makes sense. But how many of us really have only one ball to keep our eye on? The reality is that the world we live in today is much busier and much more rife with constant distraction than at any time before. (At least I believe so!)

In our “highly productive” society, we are constantly challenged to manage multiple “critical priorities” at once. And even if this isn’t being thrust upon you by your boss or clients, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re doing it to yourself in a never ending battle to do more and accomplish more.

It’s just the world we live in.

And sometimes, it’s worse than others. I know that I’m in the middle of one of those times right now. We’re in the middle of some really big, exciting things – and they’re all happening at once. (Stay tuned for more on our new membership program, a brand new “TV Channel” and more!) And I’m having a heck of a time balancing between our several new launches, plus our new season of the Transform IT show, client work, and important things like these emails.

I’d love to tell you that I have it all under control. But I’m just as guilty and susceptible as anyone to falling victim to distraction and priority overload. So, as a reminder to both you and me, here are three effective tactics we can both use to help us stay focused in a world of distractions:

Tactic #1: Know What’s Important

What do you want to accomplish? I know this sounds obvious, but the most important thing you can do to stay focused is to know what’s important. In one of the upcoming Transform IT Episodes, the CTO for Cloud Architecture at GE points to this simple idea as one of the keys to how he’s driving a massive transformation within their organization. While it sounds obvious, the truth is that most people lose focus simply because they lose sight of what they’re really after. So get a crystal clear idea of what it is that you’re trying to accomplish and write it down.

What will it take? The second challenge is that we all get distracted by the vast amount of options and alternatives that are available for us. I just went through this as I was working to design our new membership platform. I had all of these different options swirling around and during a debrief with my partner, he stopped and went back to our original, short list of key things that we needed to accomplish our goals. I realized that I had gone swirling down paths that just didn’t matter. That conversation refocused me and within a day I had the right solution.

What’s the big picture? As you look out across the myriad of things you want to accomplish – because it’s almost never just one thing – you will see that they fall into a sort of hierarchy. The biggest picture is really about what you want to accomplish in life. That’s important, because if you get so sucked into things that don’t line up with that, you’re going to be in trouble. Then you work down from there. What’s important to the company? To your department, etc. This may not be written down (although it should), but make sure that you periodically take time to pause and check yourself against the big picture.

Tactic #2: Do One Thing (at a Time)

What has top priority? I know that you’re sure that you are the exception to the rule, but the cold hard truth is that humans are not made to multitask. We suck at it. Our brain can really only do one thing at once. When we try to multitask, our brain simply switches rapidly between the different tasks and loses efficiency and energy in the process. (It’s why you’re so much more tired after spending a day juggling multiple activities.) So once you understand what important things you’re trying to accomplish and what it’s going to take to get them done, you need to pick the single, most important activity and focus exclusively on that activity until you’re ready to move on to something else.

And that means that you need to prioritize.

Prioritization can often seem to be an impossible task. “But I can’t prioritize. EVERYTHING must get done today!” I’ve said it. You’ve said it. At times, it may even be true. But the reality is that we can only accomplish so many things in any given time period, so ignoring that reality doesn’t help you. You just need to pick what is most important and focus on that one thing. It’s the fastest and surest way to get it all done.

Where are your balance points? One of the problems that we have with doing one thing at a time is that those big important activities normally take a long time. When we focus on just that one thing, a LOT of small little things can end up on the back burner and can begin to frustrate those that are counting on you to handle them. Which is why you need to create “balance points”. Think of these as logical break points. Places where you will take a break and go handle some of the smaller priorities that still need your attention. The trick is to try to identify these balance points in advance so that you will not be reactive. For instance, I’ve been working on our new membership platform. I decided in advance that once I had figured out all of the platform components and tested it enough that I knew it would work and that I could engage my team to start working on other parts of it, that I would take a break and work on other important things (like writing this article!).

Do you need to reprioritize? Despite your best efforts, the reality of our world is that things move and change very quickly. And the larger, more important a project is, the longer it will take – and the more likely that priorities will shift. To ensure that you remain focused on the right things, you need to periodically do a priority check to make sure that you’re focused on the most important thing next. This just happened today. I’ve been heads down on our new membership platform, had reached my break point and during a briefing with my partner, we realized that I needed to reprioritize some work around our new “TV channel” (I can’t wait to share this with you!). So for the next day or so, the membership site is on hold while I put my focus on our channel. The key here, however, is that this was a deliberate choice, not a reaction. You must remain in control or risk losing your focus.

Tactic #3: Take a Break

The final tactic is the simplest, but also the hardest to do.

Sometimes, you just need to take a break. If you’re anything like me, you have this massive list of things you want to get done. And even if you’ve done everything that I just described, all you really end up with is a never-ending hyper-charged march forward. In a lot of ways that’s awesome. But you will eventually break – and probably at the most important and least inopportune time. So every now and then you need to remember to pull back and give yourself some breathing room.
I actually think this happens on three levels:

  • The 5 Minute Break: While there are differing opinions (and scientific findings) about this, I generally believe that a person can be truly focused for no more than 45 – 60 minutes at a time. (That’s why multi-hour meetings are often not very productive!). So every hour or so, you should give yourself a little 5 minute breather. Get up. Walk around. Day dream. Check out Facebook. Seriously, do anything that simply relieves your mind of that heavy focus.
  • The Power Down: If you’re like me, you push hard all day long and then keep on going into the night. A lot of times, I’ll take a break and have dinner with the family, maybe watch a show or whatever and then get back at it long into the night. But frankly, that’s not the best plan. You will be much more productive if you can end the day with some kind of “power down” – doing something that allows your brain to actively disengage from the important things you’re focused on. I find reading a book is often the best way of doing this, but just find something that works for you.
  • The Escape: If you’re in a period of intense focus (which is probably the normal state, right?), you also need to find opportunities to escape and give your brain muscle a “time to heal”. In my opinion, this works best if you do it during what your brain thinks is normally “work time”. Take a hike in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. Go kayaking. Heck, even going shopping can do the trick. But by escaping from your area of heavy focus for a little bit, you’ll give your brain a chance to reset and then come back and hit it hard!

Let’s be clear about this. There is no simple cure-all to this challenge. The challenge of juggling multiple priorities will be a constant battle and struggle for any of us who want to get things done and have an impact on the world. But remembering and employing these three tactics can help bring you back from the brink and ensure that you’re focused on those things that are most important to you.

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