How to Decide What to Focus on
Welcome back to Digital Peace.
As a friendly reminder, this is a weekly blog to help busy leaders and their teams…
- Streamline their digital workspace
- Reduce mental stress
- Focus on what matters most
Before I dive into today’s lesson, I want to take a second to say thank you to those of you who responded with questions and topics you’d like to hear more about.
I want to make each blog as valuable as possible, which is why your questions drive each lesson.
If you haven’t yet, please leave a message and let me know the biggest problem you’d like to solve in your digital workspace.
Today, I want to dive into one of the most frequent questions I get…
“How Do I Decide What to Focus on Next?”
We’ve all felt it.
You’re enjoying a restful weekend, and then, at some point on Sunday afternoon, it hits you. The Sunday Scaries. You remember you have an urgent project due on Tuesday, an important meeting on Thursday, and a big presentation you need to work on for the following week.
You take a breath, “Okay, I can handle this. I just need to lock in this week.”
But then Monday hits.
You open up your email and realize there’s even more than you thought. You’re pulled into Slack threads and last-minute meetings. Finally, you have an open, 90-minute window before a team meeting, and you’re forced to make a decision.
“Do I focus on the project? Do I prep for Thursday’s meeting? Should I chip away at my presentation?”
You can feel the clock ticking, knowing every minute you spend deciding is another productive minute lost.
This is life in the thick of The Digital Mess.
You might even be feeling it now, as you prepare for the week ahead.
So let’s take a moment together to make a game plan for this week.
I can’t dive into every aspect of task management that we cover with our 1-on-1 clients, but I can give you a clear action step that should make this week a little more peaceful and a little more focused.
Sound good?
Here’s one key concept we cover with our clients.
Not All Tasks Are Equal & Not All Hours Are Equal
Said differently, some of your tasks are more important than others, and certain brain activities can be performed better at different times throughout the day.
Have you ever experienced this?
You’re working on a project at 4:00 pm and it takes you an hour, but at 9 am the next day, it takes you 20 minutes.
In order to avoid the last-minute stress of deciding what task to focus on in a given hour, I recommend making a plan ahead of time.
You can do this by asking two questions:
- What are my most crucial tasks this week? Make a list of all your tasks and pick the few that are most crucial to your goals.
- When is my mind primed to do these tasks? Block out time on your calendar in the week ahead to focus on your most important tasks
Finally, put these tasks into your task management system with their respective due dates, so you don’t forget about them this week.
This won’t solve all your problems, but taking 30-60 minutes to do this today will ensure you get your most important work done as efficiently as possible this week.
Isn’t that what we all want?
More focus, more efficiency, and less stress?
Try this out today, and please let me know how it goes this week.
