I got the idea for this post the other day while driving down the road, on my way to pick up a few pizzas for dinner. I had already decided that I was going to get a blog back up as I have been told by numerous people that they missed my blog, but I was not quite sure what would be the first post in my renewed blog.
As I was driving, I saw a squirrel running across the road, intently running from one side to the other. There was no hesitation in his direction – until he saw me. The distraction of my vehicle approaching made him go crazy. He frantically jittered back and forth in the middle of the my lane until SPLAT! I tried to slow down from the moment I saw him, and I could not get over in the other lane because a large truck was approaching in the oncoming lane. This squirrel’s sudden indecisiveness upon seeing me would be his undoing.
Keeping Focused
We all run into these problems from time to time. Especially when you work from home and even moreso when you are just beginning to get your marketing online. It is so easy to get online and find information everywhere. Many people jokingly call this the “ooo, shiny” effect, making a reference to those with ADHD (like me) because we can easily get distracted when something new catches our attention.
When you work in an office environment, you typically have set guidelines of what is expected of you each day, and in some cases, even each hour (think of the telemarketer that is gauged by how many calls they make in an hour versus the effectiveness of individual calls over a day or week). When you work from home or own your own business, it can often be difficult to stay focused on a single project or single portion of a project.
Staying focused on your current efforts is difficult, but can be managed if you have clear goals and expectations. Now, this is not to say that you cannot effectively manage multiple tasks, or even multiple projects during a day or week, but you do need to give yourself specific goals and expectations within each of those. So, how do you do that?
Setting Goals and Expectations
Most people who have followed me for any significant amount of time know that I always have multiple projects going on. To an outsider, they may view this as having my attention divided, but what they do not see is that I have very clear goals and expectations within each of these projects and I manage my time very efficiently. And that says a lot for someone with ADHD. Let me show you what a typical week looks like for me.
Sunday evenings, I have 1 hour scheduled on my calendar to go over my weekly goals. I utilize this time to look at what I need to do in each of my businesses and set clear expectations in each of them. last night, I set my schedule with all the things for the week that were immovable. I have appointments with clients throughout the week for my consulting business that were already set up. I have a doctor’s appointment, a few conference calls, etc. I then set up static appointments for my non-profit, where I have to meet with business owners and local government entities for some of what we are doing in our upcoming facility build (see Coast Hydro website for more information about this – awesome stuff).These are things that are static in my schedule and I set them up and code them in my calendar (I will do another blog post on how to use color-coding in your calendar for better effectiveness in the very near future).
After entering my static entries, I set up time blocks for other things I need to do that need to be accomplished, but not necessarily in any given order. So, I utilize a task list for individual tasks that need to be done (writing blog posts, sending out newsletters, updating content directories, building landing pages, etc). As I come up with new things that need to be done in any portion of my business, I assign it to a specific task list. By running several task lists (one for each of your projects), you can be sure that you schedule time in your calendar to spend a certain amount of time in each project, and don’t inadvertently spend all your time focusing on the easiest tasks while missing out on tasks in another, equally important area of your business.
So, a typical day, I look at my static appointments, then I add time blocks specific to individual task lists, making sure I give the appropriate time to each of my lists. The time I spend on each list varies based on my current project timelines and goals to complete. For instance, some friends (and consequently also mentors of mine) recently joined a network marketing business after being commissioned to develop a sales funnel for a team already working within the business. After seeing how well the landing pages and funnel converted, as well as seeing that the company, which spends over $100 million a year on infomercials just gives customers to qualifying reps, they joined. When I saw all of the tools available to marketers, I joined as well (you can see just one of the many sales funnels in action by signing up at this landing page). Now, in order to be effective, I cannot just let it sit there. No, I have to schedule time in my calendar to get my links out there. Even though I had several other projects going on, I knew the importance of getting this done as well so I make sure to schedule at least 1 hour a day into my schedule to do some basic tasks like pasting my links to Facebook, sending information to people who contact me based on those posts, etc. To the untrained eye, this may appear to be random, but it is part of my scheduled routine.
Within the time blocks I schedule off, I make a note of which task list I am working from, and for the duration of that hour or two-hour time block, I do nothing but work on tasks associated with that specific project. Once the block is up, I am free to take a break until the next task is scheduled (I like to leave a 15 minute window after every hour I work to recuperate and mentally prepare for the next task list.
Just remember, when setting your calendar and creating your task lists, it is important to set realistic goals of what you want to achieve, what you expect from yourself in each of your time blocks, and schedule accordingly. If you have tasks that you know are going to take you several hours to complete, and they have to be done by the end of the day, don’t set a 1 hour time slot to complete them in. Otherwise, you will feel unaccomplished for that time block and can lead to a disappointing feeling moving into the next task – never a good way to move into the next portion of your day.
Don’t be a Squirrel
As you go through your day, and you run through your tasks, stay focused. If you see something else that looks beneficial, set a time to come back and look at it with fresh eyes. If it does not directly benefit the current task you are working on, you are doing nothing but dividing your attention at that moment, and that is the quickest way to make your efforts go SPLAT!
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