Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

The Power to Focus

Ever feel like you are being pulled in a million different directions and like you just can’t seem to make progress in accomplishing anything in any one of them?  Do you ever struggle to maintain focus and find yourself bouncing between tasks like popcorn popping on the stovetop?  If so, then you are not alone!  Many of us, including yours truly, fight this battle on a regular basis.

Perhaps you think that your job, your environment, your boss’s expectations, or the way that your brain is wired simply preclude you from ever having any real hope of truly focusing on one thing at a time.  Maybe you even take pride in your ability to effectively multitask…(like the super-mom that can feed the baby, bring in the groceries from the car to the house, cook dinner, do a load of laundry and talk on the phone with a friend all at the same time!)  Multi-tasking certainly has its place, but studies in time management and work place effectiveness show that focusing on one thing at a time yields increased effectiveness and efficiency.

Before resigning yourself to the belief that the ability to focus is just an illusive, unreachable goal in the fast-paced 21st century in which we live, allow me to challenge each of us (myself included!) to consider this…

You and I have the POWER to focus…it is up to us to choose to exercise that power.

Like the skilled archer with bow and arrow in hand, you and I can choose to deliberately focus our aim at one target before us… or we can resign ourselves to using a scattered, shotgun approach, hoping to hit a plethora of targets with the splintered spray of our attention.

Does the challenge to choose to focus look impossible?  Then start small.  Pick one hour a day to focus on completing one project.  Consider this your “hour of power”.  Turn off the cell phone.  Don’t check your email.  Lay out the task before you and go after it with deliberate and intense focus for the next hour.  At the end of the hour, check your results.   Let me know how effective you’ve been with your time.  I look forward to hearing powerful results from your focused “hour of power”!

Filed under: Self Leadership