422 | Increasing Your Focus Will Change Your Impact
Knowing the steps to increase your focus are common. Doing them is an entirely different thing. Everyone has their way of increasing focus that works for them until it doesn’t anymore. I remember struggling with my focus when I would come to work. The list was planned out, and I was ready when I sat down at my desk. However, once the day started, and my team showed up to work, I felt more like a firefighter than a CEO. You have likely had similar moments too. Today, I am sharing with you some simple ways of improving your focus so that you can get the right things done. Discover one simple trick I use just before I open my laptop that has changed how productive I am. Increasing your focus will give you more time back for the stuff that matters.
Don't miss an episode. Subscribe to Growth Think Tank.
Share the LOVE and TWEET about this episode.
Increasing Your Focus: The Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
What do you do with your time? Have you ever felt at the end of the day that you just weren’t effective with your time? Have you ever felt exhausted, but yet looked back and realized that you only got a few things done? Well, we’ve all felt this way, but time is the equalizer. You’ve heard this before. I’ve probably said it before. You might’ve said it before, but we all only have 24 hours in a day. So how do we make the most of that time?
Well, my name is Gene Hammett. I help fast-growth companies that really aspire to have a dream of growing fast, creating an opportunity for their team members, for their customers and for the marketplace as a whole. They’re there to change the world. If that sounds like you, then you want to tune in to this because what you do with your time matters.
Recently I was asked by my mentor, Jason Swenk, about the aspects of my time. I was feeling frustrated. I was feeling a little overwhelmed and I say this with you openly because we’ve all been there and the reason I feel that is because more opportunities have been coming to me and I’ve been stretched trying to say yes to them all, which is a mistake. We all know this, but you don’t want to let go of things that could be a benefit to the business or a benefit to our customers and so we try to hold onto everything as long as possible. One of the things I’ve been doing recently to increase my focus is to do a time audit.
Now, not everyone can do this because they’ll make excuses, they’ll say they don’t have time to do the time audit, but yet, they’ll still continue to feel frustrated because they’re not getting enough done. So if you want to increase your focus, then you’ve got to look at your time. Increasing your focus will give you more impact. Period. So, how do you increase your focus? Well, it starts with that time audit. You have to be able to look at how you’re spending your time. I was not working as much as I thought I was and I was much more intentional about the work sessions that I was doing and when looking back over everything, I was really kind of excited about some of the areas of focus that I knew that I could improve.
Now here are some of those ideas that came up when I did my time audit. Now, this was over a two week period so you can choose to commit to one day, probably not worth that much, a week is good, two weeks will give you a really good view of how you spend your time. So here’s what I found. I am better when I plan the day in advance. I live by my schedule. Today I have nine calls with clients, potential clients or people that I’m interviewing or planning to interview for writing are for the podcast. Nine clients today. Now, that’s because, on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, I have client day and all these appointments. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I don’t have that many appointments. That’s designed intentionally. But I plan my day in advance.
How do you plan your day to get the most out of it? I know that time batching is something that I really have to really adhere to. I had a great day yesterday preparing for this video and preparing for a few others and this is really much more effective than just taking a little bit of time here and there. So you want to plan your day in advance. The second one is to commit to three. You’ve probably heard this before but maybe you’ve never done it. I’ve been using an app on my phone, it’s called Commit to Three. I think that’s the name of it. But, I’m gonna pull it up here while I’m talking to you.
The Commit to Three apps is something that will allow you to plug-in, yep, that’s the name of it, allow you to plug-in just three things that you intend to do that day and if you did those three things, you would feel like you’ve made progress toward what you’re trying to do for the week and for the month, for the quarter, for the year, you get the idea, but it starts with the three things that you’re going to do.
Now, my three things today are one of them was a record this video. Another one was to send out messages for all of the nine meetings I have to do a little pre-planning process and then I also am gonna wrap up the day by framing an article that I’m writing tomorrow morning. That is being intentional about my time. So what are your three things?
That app is absolutely free and if you want to join me on it, I’m willing to play a game with you. If you want to get to know each other and hold each other accountable to your commit three, I’ll create a special group just for us for the leaders in the trenches tribe and we will commit to three together each day. You can see what I’m doing. I’ll be able to see what you’re doing and I’ll be able to encourage you if you need any help. This is not a chance for me to sell you something. It’s a chance for me to serve you as a community. So, if you want to join me, make sure you send me an email, [email protected]. Finally, let’s wrap this up.
What I noticed when I was doing my time audit, this one thing really helped out tremendously. Instead of just opening up the computer to check email, check on Facebook, check Instagram or check anything else, I would sit down and just take a moment to think about what is the most important thing for me to do when I open this laptop. And what it turned out was I would turn to my phone for my commit three and I would look and see could I make progress on that one thing and the first thing in the morning, I’m always doing the first thing ’cause that’s part of planning my day, but I don’t open my laptop now without knowing exactly what I’m going to do when I do it and that may be check email, but most of the time it’s not. Most of the time it’s something very specific toward something that will really move the brand forward and serve my clients in a greater way. So if you want to increase your focus, you’ve got to do a time audit and then from that, you’ll be able to restructure your day.
Now you may have this already, but I will give you a free link to a guide that I put together called Hyper productivity. If you go to genehammet.com/productivity, you’ll be able to get this guide completely for free. It’s three ways to look at your time and get the most of it. If you want to increase your focus, it will increase your impact. My name is Gene Hammett. I work with companies that want to be fast growth companies that will create leadership and inspire ownership and they dream of doing this and creating the kind of company that really makes an impact in the world. If that’s you, make sure you reach out. I’d love to get to know you. Again, lead with courage and I’ll see you next time.
Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
Resources
A QUICK FAVOR
And lastly, please leave a rating and review for the Leaders in the Trenches on iTunes (or Stitcher) – it will help us in many ways, but it also inspires us to keep doing what we are doing here. Thank you in advance!
If you want more from us check out more interviews:
Best Selling Author Interviews
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | https://www.youtube.com/user/leadersinthetrenches
