Have you ever experienced a huge deadline, and whilst you were working towards it, you lost focus?
You have been watching dogs being tricked with a curtain on Facebook for an hour, or mindlessly scrolled through Instagram pictures. Ever caught yourself doing that? And if so, did you also say to yourself: “Focus!”?
So what is focus exactly?
As it is what you say when you need to get something done quickly. “Focus is bringing your attention to one thing only and to concentrate on that one thing.”
Now in our current environments with so many distractions around us, focus is not always easy. Yet, it does help you to get things done and obtain better results. If you want to read more about how you do this, get my no.1 productivity tool right here.
Ever noticed, when you have given yourself a very limited time window in which a task, like writing an article, had to be done, and you knew it was the only time to get it done, it is done. In exactly that time limit you had?
Saying no to everything else is focus.
“Focus is saying yes to one thing, the task at hand. And by saying yes to only that one article, you are saying no to everything else.”
You are saying no to a colleague who comes to chat, a phone call and all other things that pop up.
The reason this helps so much is simple: any distraction that makes your attention deviate from what you were doing, will take you a couple of minutes more to get your concentration back again.
Therefore multitasking is not a great idea when you want to do something successfully and in a short time span.
How to focus
But how do you know what to focus on? Obviously, the urgent tasks with a deadline are imperative. But what about all those other tasks you also need to work on?
Today I want to share with you a tip from the investor Warren Buffet. This is his advice:
- Write down all the tasks you need to work on this week and number them.
- Of this list, circle the 5 most important tasks you need to work on. This is list A. All the remaining tasks form List B.
You now have two lists: list A and list B. Now what do you think, Warren Buffet’s –one of the richest men- advice is, on what to do next?
Most likely you assume it is work on list A first and then start working on list B. Am I right?
Stop on time
Well, that is not his advice. Warren Buffet states: “You only focus on your top priorities, your A list. You do not even look at list B any more. Those are not relevant.”
Will you be able to do this? Are you willing to try and bring more focus in your work? Getting more things done in less time, allowing you to go home earlier?
As you see, there is where most of us go wrong. We assume we need to do List A ánd B. Do all our tasks.
Enjoy your life
The trick is to indeed get more productive and get better results. Not to be able to do more work, but simply to enjoy your life outside work. Go home a bit early, or at a normal time. As that is what makes life worth living: enjoying yourself.
Do you want to know how you can make this work for you? Email me and we’ll set up a focus call, in which I will share your next 3 steps.
Yvonne Dam is an online life coach and career coach who helps busy, ambitious people to enjoy life. She helps them to focus on what matters in their lives and careers, in order to make more money and achieve more freedom! After feeling trapped in the corporate world, Yvonne decided to do more of what she loved and found the more she chose to do what she wanted, the happier she became. Yvonne is passionate about coaching and sharing her expertise with you so you can be liberated to fully embrace life. Ready to pause your busy life for a moment and download some happy vibes? Get my FREE eBook and feel happy!
Yvonne has a vast coaching experience from executives to teams to ambitious business owners.
Through her personal and business coaching programs she has helped dozens grow their businesses while drastically reducing their working hours.
And when Yvonne is not coaching, you can find her indulging in beach walks, and a sparkly glass of champagne.
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