Focus Part Two: Don’t Let Yourself Get Distracted

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…” So begins a famous poem titled If by the great Rudyard Kipling. If you have never read it, I highly recommend it. However, for the purpose of today’s blog I only need the opening line. My last blog dealt with focus in writing. Today I am going to talk about focus in your business and in your goals. Now the chap in the poem certainly has focus, wouldn’t you say? The image the Kipling evokes in just a few short words is one of chaos, save for one solitary figure of focus. And that figure can be you.

One of the tenets of focus is to have clearly defined goals and a clearly defined path to achieve those goals. Without those two things you are merely plodding along waiting for the winds of good or ill to blow something either in or out of your path. In other words, you are leaving your future up to others, which is never a good idea. You must take charge of your life, your career, your dreams. Therefore, you must have an objective or a goal and a plan to reach it. Now let me clarify something here. The goal I am talking about doesn’t have to be THE GOAL, but it could be a goal the get you closer to THE GOAL, it may take several small goals to reach THE GOAL, and that is perfectly fine, in fact, if you read my blog Bite Size Pieces, it makes things more manageable, and you have small triumphs along the way which is also encouraging.

So now you and have a path with several goal posts leading to THE GOAL. You know what you have to do in order to reach the next goal post. Forget about THE GOAL for now just think about the next goal post and what you have to do to get there. Is it a sales goal? Is it a customer acquisition goal? It doesn’t really matter what it is, if you are focused 110% on solely attaining it to the exclusion of everything else the odds are in your favor that you will attain it.

So focus, the best way to stay focus in a business setting when you are trying to reach a goal to set yourself a routine. Let’s say you arrive at the office at 9:00 get you coffee, put your coat away, check your mail chat a bit and you are at your desk ready to work absolutely no later than 9:20. Check your email until 9:30. Write done the things you want to accomplish that day. 9:45-10:45 return phone calls and emails. 10:45-12:00 make fresh calls 12:00-1:00 lunch 1:00-2:30 research new markets 2:30-2:45 check & respond to emails 2:45-4:30 Fresh calls 4:30-5:00 send emails Now, obviously this is a sample day, you will have meetings scheduled both within your company and with clients and with potential clients, but the point is you need to schedule time in your schedule to make calls, the send emails and to research new markets, or new avenues of business otherwise you will just be a hamster on the wheel. If you are just a hamster on the wheel you don’t need focus. But, if you have an aim, an objective, a goal, you need laser focus, otherwise you’ll never get off the wheel. Focus is great, but it’s not enough, you also need to think outside of the box if you want to reach THE GOAL. In order to have the time to think outside the box you literally have to schedule it in.

In conclusion, have a GOAL, have a plan to reach THE GOAL. Have a schedule every day, schedule in time to think and research outside of the box so you can reach THE GOAL. If you have all of these things you can help but have focus and originality and you will keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.