Staying focused is NO EASY TASK. Often times I have so many things happening at once that I feel constantly pulled in multiple directions.
This makes me feel crazy and like I’m not really getting anything accomplished—even if I’m actually getting a lot done! How maddening, right?
So I started to be mindful of reflecting on what went well and what didn’t for all of these tasks that I have going on. This has two major benefits.
One, is that it allows me to see what I can do better next time.
For example, scheduling a client phone call too close to time for my kiddos to get home from school meant that I had to try to quiet them and signal that I was on the phone as they walked in the door. This turned out to be a BAD IDEA because there was a lot of noise and I was totally distracted.
Reflecting on this means that next time I more easily remember to schedule that client call to happen when I have more time.
The other benefit of reviewing what worked and what didn’t is that I can tell if I was productive or just busy.
Busy means that I was doing a lot but didn’t have much to show for it. Productive means that I saw results from the actions I took that got me closer to meeting my goals.
Here’s a question I ask myself to help me reflect on the work I’ve done and know if I was productive or just busy:
How did I grow last week?
How do you answer that question? If you can’t easily answer it, no worries. You’re not alone.
I’m here to say that you can figure out a way to answer it that allows you to see your progress, track it, and celebrate it.
If you can get into the habit of setting a goal for the week, then checking if you completed it by asking that question, you’ll be set to really see the progress you’d like instead of just feeling busy all the time. Does this make sense?
For example, the goal you set at the start of the week might be to send follow-up emails to the business leads you have. You want to turn them into clients and you know that the next step is to respond with your follow-up email. At the end of the week if you sent those emails, you know that you’re closer to getting a new client if you took the action step you needed to take.
If you didn’t take the action step and found yourself only doing busy work around that goal, you know that you lost focus.
An example of losing focus for this goal would be that you started the email drafts and never finished them. Or because you went on Facebook to find a detail about the lead that you wanted to include in your email and ended up getting lost in a social media rabbit hole and ran out of time to finish and send the follow-up emails.
Can you be proactive with this idea by creating a goal for the week that you want to grow in XYZ way (pick a way to fill in the blank)? If you can, you’ll be able to focus the actions you need to take for that growth and truly actually accomplish it. I promise you this!
This eliminates that feeling that you’re doing, doing, doing and not getting anything done. It helps you to be aware of the bigger picture so you stay focused and complete the actions you set out to finish.
Some weeks are harder to see results than others. Reflecting on “How did I grow last week?” allows you to put attention on not just your to-do list, but what you actually got done and how it helped you to uplevel and meet your bigger goals.
Goodbye squirrel brain! Hello focused and productive actions!
Let me know what you think about saying goodbye to your inner squirrel and hello to getting things done by reflecting with the question, “How did I grow last week?” I’d love to hear how it went when you tried it.
With much love and gratitude,
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