Why creating focus and flow is important
Anyone who runs their own business knows how important it is to remain focused and in flow in your daily actions. It’s so easy to get side-tracked when you have a lot of areas in your business that constantly need your attention.
Areas such as marketing, sales, operations, client delivery, research and development, backend technology, and the list goes on.
So how do you remain in flow rather than scattered? This post shares a few tips to get you started to a more productive and successful daily schedule.
1. Cultivating Presence
It all starts with becoming present and centred within yourself. Before you dive into your day, sit quietly for 5 or 10 minutes. Take some deep breaths and really focus on the now, on the present. Let go of anything in the past as well as anything that hasn’t happened yet.
If you need to, jot down anything that you need to remember for later. This ensures it’s out of your mind for now but not forgotten.
Focus on the most important tasks that you need to achieve on this day, right now.
Ideally you already have an idea of your three main daily actions. If you have a planning system in place you will already know what is most important for you to get done today.
If you don’t then I highly encourage you to have a planning system that breaks down your annual, quarterly, monthly and weekly goals into daily actions.
2. Ditch the Multi-tasking
Multi-tasking is fraught with distractions. When you jump from one task to another, nothing gets done properly.
We can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
We only have so much energy at the beginning of the day. So the more we bounce around trying to do multiple things at once, the more our energy gets depleted. So in the long run, we actually get less done.
Focus on one task and do that task well.
When you’ve finished, move on to the next one.
If the task is too big, break it down into smaller chunks so you can focus on one chunk at a time.
3. Learn and grow
When preparing your daily tasks in your planning system, make sure you add in those that help you to grow. Tasks and actions that will maximise your learning opportunities and ones that will challenge you.
This is one of the keys to mastery.
If you constantly do easy tasks, you’ll easily get bored which leads to distraction.
For those easy tasks, consider outsourcing if you don’t already. Or find a way to automate them.
Life is available only in the present moment. If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live your daily life completely.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Wrapping Up
Following these tips will massively increase your productivity and allow more focus and flow into your daily life.
This may take time and practice, but over time you’ll find yourself developing this regular habit.
For other productivity tips, this previous post shares 4 Tips to Manage Your Time Productively.
Share in the comments, which of these three tips excites you the most?