There is a common theme that seems to be happening with business owners, leaders, and managers right now. They are busy. But not just busy, they are overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with the constantly changing demands of the landscape right now. Can you relate?
There continues to remain a shortage of people in the workforce. And even fully staffed businesses seem to be struggling to keep up in the challenging climate that we’re living in right now. So, what are you supposed to do? How do you keep up with the always-growing to-do list that sits on your desk or is stored on your phone?
It’s time to take a step back and analyze what you’re spending your time on. It’s one thing to be busy. But it’s another to be busy doing things that don’t really need your attention. It’s time to make sure you’re focusing on the right things within your business.
It’s easy to be distracted by all the wrong things in business.
As a leader, it’s safe to assume that you’re never going to have a shortage of things to do. There’s most likely not going to be a day when you sit at your desk twiddling your thumbs because things are running great and there’s absolutely nothing left for you to do. And to be honest, that’s probably not in your nature to let that happen. When your to-do list is cleaned off, you have a long list of other ideas you put on the back burner months ago.
But that doesn’t mean you should be running around nonstop day after day.
There are many small tasks that sneak into your day and steal the time you should be working on more important things. This can include things like:
- Checking email repeatedly
- Stopping to check your phone every time you get a notification
- Recreating the wheel every time you complete a task because you don’t have systems in place
- Continuing to work on tasks you delegated to someone else
- Wasting time doing things you’re unskilled at instead of finding someone who is skilled at it
- Allowing meetings to get off track and go overschedule
What should you focus on in your business?
I wish I could give you a detailed list of the things you should be focusing your time and energy on. But every business is different. Every role is different. unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all plan to follow. It’s up to you to determine where your focus should be. But thankfully, there is a simple process you can follow to help you determine what you should be working on.
Start with determining where you are
You can’t determine where you want to go until you know where you are. You need to assess your business and your team to know where you’re at. What’s going well? What needs works? What employees could use additional training? Are there systems that the company is lacking? Are there systems that could be automated?
Spend some time questioning each area of your business. Or, you could hire a business coach that does business assessments to help you find the answers to these questions and more.
Determine where you want to go
Once you know where you are, it’s time to decide where you want to go. What are you trying to accomplish? What goals does your business have? And more specifically, what goals do you have for your team?
As you think through these goals, start at the top level and work your way down. You want to start with the big picture view and goal setting of the business as a whole. Once you have that in place, you can start to break down the goals for each department and team member. Think about what each group or individual needs to accomplish to support the goal of the organization as a whole.
Use goals to create your task focus
Now that you have your goals in place, it’s time to look at what you should be focusing on. When you start by focusing on your goals, it helps to assure that the things you spend your time on will move you in that direction.
As you look through your current to-do list, ask yourself what goals each task is helping you reach. If you find that your tasks aren’t moving you in the direction of your goals, it’s time to make some changes. This also helps you to see what tasks are the most important on your list. You have a limited amount of time to complete your work each day. That means you need to make sure you’re focusing on the right things with that time.
How the SPEARity app helps you focus on your priorities
There are several ways that the SPEARity app keeps you focused on the right things within your business.
Track your goals
The first is that the app allows you to input your goals. From your goals, you’re able to create a list of the tasks that will help you get there. You can assign these tasks to your day and track your progress.
The app actually allows you to see how the tasks you’re doing are tied to your overall goals. That means it also makes it obvious when the tasks on your to-do list are not related to your goals. If you’re always busy and your daily to-do list is full and you’re not making any progress towards your goals, you’re going to see you’re focusing on the wrong things.
Limits your daily tasks
Another way the SPEARity app helps you focus on the right things is by limiting the number of things you can plan for each day. I’ll be honest, this was really frustrating for me when I first started using the app. I’m one of those people that like to put 25 things on my daily to-do list. Everything seems important and I want to make sure I get it done. But I obviously run out of time to cross everything off my list each day.
When I started using the app I had a hard time accepting that I couldn’t assign everything I wanted to do to the day I wanted to do it. But it only took one day before I realized why I could only put so many things on each day’s list. It forced me to prioritize my tasks for the day. The app forced me to be realistic with what I could accomplish with my time, which forced me to analyze my to-do list to find the most important things.
This allowed me to start working more focused on the things that really mattered.
Check in with your team
That app also makes it possible for you to see the progress that your team is making on their goals and team goals. This allows you to quickly see what progress is being made and catch any areas that need to be addressed. It can also make it possible for you to cut back on some of the meetings that you may currently be having. You can transition to more efficient 15-minute meetings with your team members. Watch the video below if you want to know more about these meetings.
Realign when needed
We’ve all had those days when something comes along that derails your plans for the day. You end up having to focus on that thing while neglecting the things you were planning on working on. The SPEARity app is designed for you to check in each day and see where your success was, where your failures were, and what needs to be realigned. This means you see what went wrong or didn’t get accomplished and create a plan to improve it or complete it. This helps you to get back on track quickly instead of staying stuck on the derailed path.
What changes do you need to make?
As you read through this do you see areas that you could improve so you could focus on the most important things within your business? If you’re ready to make some positive changes and take back control of your schedule, speak with a SPEARity coach today or learn how the app can help you and your team be more productive.
