FRIDAY REVIEW: FOCUS
How intense is your focus on the goals you have set? Here are a few focus-related posts you may have missed. Click the link to read the full message.
“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.”
Tag Archives: focus
obstacles and dreams
“In one hand I have a dream, and in the other I have an obstacle. Tell me, which one grabs your attention?”
—Sir Henry Parkes, Member of the Australian Parliament
Image from Flickr by Mark Hunter
Today’s quote reminds me of the saying, “Where your attention goes, your energy flows.” Since energy is what moves the world, it makes sense to heed this advice.
What are the issues that grab your attention, personally and professionally? How is directing your attention there influencing and impacting your life?
EXERCISE:
How and in what ways can you stop focusing on your obstacles and put more time and attention to your most cherished goals and dreams?
Friday Review: Focus
FRIDAY REVIEW: FOCUS
How focused are you on the things you desire? Here are a few focus-related posts you may have missed. Click on the link to read the full post.
“My brain has too many tabs open.”
Busy is a form of lazy
“Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”
-Timothy Ferriss, Author
Timothy Ferris is an American author, entrepreneur, and public speaker, best known for his 2007 best-selling book, The 4-Hour Work Week.
Assuming the average worker puts in 40 hours each week, we would see that Ferris is suggesting we work only 10% of those hours.
To achieve such a breakthrough would clearly cause us to do far less and in many cases stop the majority of our daily tasks.
EXERCISE:
How would decreasing the time you spend in meaningless work and focusing on your most important priorities improve the quality of your personal and professional worlds?
Begin today by ruthlessly cutting out at least one hour of busywork that is adding no real value to your world.
Productive, not Busy
“Focus on being productive instead of busy.”
-Tim Ferris, author & Entrepreneur
Over the past few weeks I learned about a new book by Cal Newport titled Deep Work—Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.
In this timely book, Cal shares his formula for high productivity:
High quality work produced = (time spent X intensity of focus)
Take a moment to examine your typical work day with regard to this equation.
Where does your time go?
How much intensity do you focus on each of your important and unimportant tasks?
EXERCISE:
How and in what ways would blocking out larger chunks of quality time when you are operating at optimal intensity increase your productivity today?
Focus
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not in fighting the old, but on building the new.”
—Socrates, Classic Greek Philosopher
image from bigfishmedia.ca
When I consider the idea of fighting the old ways of doing things, I think of the phrase, whatever we resist persists. Notice how some of your own less-than-desirable habits or behaviors seem to stick around no matter how much you try to fight them off. The act of building things is much like a replacement strategy where we insert what we desire into our lives instead.
EXERCISE:
What would be the biggest difference in your personal or professional life if you stopped fighting the old and started building the new?
Focus
Follow One Course Until Successful (FOCUS)
—Author Unknown
Image from blog.ruzuku.com
One of my favorite quotes related to the FOCUS acronym is “If you try to chase two rabbits they both get away.”
In our “faster, faster” world, multi-tasking is a fairly common practice. Although this strategy seems to work in many circumstances, it often has drawbacks, particularly when we are faced with a very important priority. In such cases, even a small bit of distraction or taking our eye off the ball can have considerable undesirable consequences.
EXERCISE:
Identify one or two areas in your life where a lack of focus is having a less than desirable impact. Where would following one course until successful produce the greatest value for you today and in the future?
“Every success story…”
“Every success story is a tale of constant adaptation, revision, and change.”
—Sir Richard Branson, KBE, founder of Virgin Group
Image from www.64ouncegames.com
We all know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Life in general, and our journey toward success, never really works that way.
To navigate our world we must, as Sir Branson suggests, adapt, revise, and change our approach moment to moment. This iterative process works very much like an internal GPS system, constantly informing us of where we are, and where we wish to go. It helps us plot the alternative routes we can take to progress toward our desired destination.
EXERCISE:
Where is it necessary to adapt, revise, or change your approach to tell a more successful tale in either your personal or professional life?
“The main thing is…”
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
-Stephen Covey, Author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Image from www.niagarafallsreview.ca
Stephen Covey was a wise man. Few individuals have had a more lasting impact in the development of individuals as life-long learners. Part of his brilliance was his ability to break complicated principles into their simplest form, resulting in his brilliant Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
EXERCISE:
Apply today’s quote to Covey’s Seven Habits to discover your main things for the day:
- Be proactive
- Begin with the end in mind
- First things first
- Think Win-Win
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the saw
How will greater focus and far fewer “main things” help you realize more of your potential now, and in the future?
“Convert your Marketing Strategy…”
“Convert your marketing strategy from a shotgun to a laser.”
—Author Unknown
Image from bigfishmedia.ca
Many marketing professionals would agree that if we try to be all things to all people, we almost always miss the mark and become nothing to no one.
Many year ago, when I worked in the pharmaceutical industry, we used an exercise called, “walk the patient across the doctor’s desk,” in order to position our medication in the minds of each physician.
The more specific we were in describing how our medications managed the patient’s symptoms, the clearer the physician was in its utility and application.
EXERCISE:
How can and will you focus your marketing and sales efforts to hit the bulls-eye and better support the customers you wish to serve?