One Step At A Time

Are you struggling to stay on task?

Do you feel so overwhelmed, that it is difficult to stay focused or be productive?

Is your desk a mirror image of how you feel your life is at the moment – cluttered and disorganized?

Do you feel like every day is a continuous stream of meetings, emails, text messages, voicemails, calls, and your ‘real’ workday starts at 5:30pm?

Is your family or social life suffering as you have become unreliable and not present even when you do turn up to an event?

We all feel this way at some time in our professional career, let’s work together to get back on track. To accomplish more, you simply have to remember to concentrate on one thing at a time.

Think back on a time when you attained extraordinary results, remember being in the zone? Remember your level of concentration and how you felt when you had attained those results? Don’t you love that energy, focus and flow?  Being in the zone normally occurs when you are fully immersed in one task that is a step towards a defined, meaningful goal. Let’s get you back to that extraordinary feeling on a daily basis.

One of my favorite books, The One Thing – the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan, is a refreshing take on how to get back to the basics. Define what your most important goal is, break it down into task chunks and work on one thing at a time until you get it done. Your productivity and results will exponentially improve by sticking to this one rule. Keller’s simple philosophy is to concentrate on one thing at a time, and ask yourself “What’s the ONE thing I can do such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” Keller’s advice works on any goal that you are working towards.

When I recommend to clients to work in focused time blocks on their most important daily task that will bring the most return, I generally receive a lot of push-back. I am often told that it is simply not possible and they could not afford to do so. I am told in great detail the amount they have to get done in a day.

The items covered are normally the same in conversations and include constant meeting attendance, emails and phone calls, staffing issues, project milestone priorities and other demands that they feel they have to attend to in a day.

My challenge is then to test this method with them, 100% of the time I have been able to change their way of thinking and improve their productivity and increase desired results. We dissect their day, and it becomes apparent by concentrating in block-periods of time, meaning doing only the #1 thing on their schedule for a given time period, they attain better results faster.

Running on the hamster wheel, doing multiple tasks (but none very well) comes with unintended consequences like missed project deadlines, increased levels of stress, diminished relationships and physical health. This type of ‘busyness’ does not get you the results you want in the long-term.

Simply concentrate on one thing at a time, do it well, then block off associated focused time to work on the next task essential to attain your goal. When possible, try to block your day in two ways, morning  for #1 identified task and afternoon  for managerial or administrative responsibilities meaning everything else. I appreciate that this is a very challenging ask, and for some simply not possible. However, when you schedule your week in this way, and compare your result achievement to your previous hamster-wheel schedule you will be pleasantly surprised.

Of the numerous quotes that Keller used in his book, two in particular really struck a chord with me:

“The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.” – Bob Hawke, Australian Prime Minister 1983-1991

and

“Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.” – Steve Uzzell, Photographer, Speaker and Author

In closing, I would like to leave you with three pointers to increase your productivity and attain greater results:

1. Set stretch goals – think big and break it down into actionable, smaller, sequential tasks. Work on the tasks in order, during focused time blocks until they are finished. You will attain your results faster and more efficiently. Remember, always start with doing your most important thing first.
2. Stop multitasking and focusing on how busy you are! Evaluate your mindset, make the positive shift to focused attention. Concentrate on the #1 thing that you really need to concentrate on, finish it, and then move forward.
3. Practice saying ‘no’ to non-important items and commitments. Let someone else do it, delegate or give someone else the opportunity to step up and take it on. And recognize, some things simply aren’t worth doing.

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