What are you focused on?
There are so many people talking about hustling and how it is the core way to be successful, but what they aren’t telling you is that just hustling isn’t the answer. Focused hustle is the answer
It doesn’t matter how many hours you spend working on something, if you aren’t doing the “right” things, you can’t be successful.
Knowing what activities are important to your business growth and focusing on those is the core way to be successful.
Think about all the things that you do on a daily basis in your business. How do they line up with your business goals?
How much time are you spending every day putting out fires? Are you constantly behind the 8 ball trying to get caught up?
One of my favourite ways to determine the importance of a task is Stephen Covey’s third habit “Put First Things First”
Quadrants:
- Important and Urgent (fires, crises)
- Important and not Urgent (Planning, new opportunities, relationship building, exercising)
- Not Important and Urgent (interruptions, some email, some meetings)
- Not Important and not Urgent (busy work, TV, time wasters, mindless scrolling)
Each task you have will fit into one of these quadrants. Here is how to “manage” those types of tasks.
- Manage them
- Focus most of your time here
- Avoid these
- Limit the time you spend here
How do you use the time you have?
You now have two choices, you can ignore what you just learned about the tasks that you deal with every day or you can do something about them.
If you chose to do something about it, then you now have to stop allowing the tasks to form your day and instead you can plan your day knowing which tasks you are going to deal with.
In planning your day, you are taking control of the tasks and making the most room for the tasks that fit into quadrant 2 and giving yourself enough play in your time to deal with the quadrant 1 tasks that come up.
Quadrant 3 and 4 tasks can be a problem for sure, but if you decide you don’t have time for them then you give them less power.
Once you have decided to take back control of your day and you have created your plan it is time to execute. This is what focused hustle is all about.
This is a new way of doing things and it will be hard to stick to at first. Most people fall off the path in the beginning. After all, you are breaking old habits and creating new ones.
My private clients struggle with this process in the beginning as well, but they have me there to keep them accountable as they build their new habits.
When you consistently follow this process, the most amazing things will start to happen. Your business will grow faster, and you will enjoy your business more as well!
What types of tasks are you focused on?
In quadrant 2 there are many different kinds of tasks and figuring out which of these tasks will grow your business the quickest is also important to understand.
Some of the tasks I listed above such as planning, new opportunities, relationship building and exercising.
Clearly, if you just picked one and spent all your time working on that one thing you wouldn’t really be that much further ahead than you are right now. In fact, you might be worse off, depending on what you are focused on now.
When you think of your quadrant 2 tasks you need to make sure you have a good balance of activities so that you are looking after money-making, operational, and client activities too. Now you can use your focused hustle time and put it to good use.
How do you take care of you while you work?
Focusing intently on the important tasks is what you need to do in order to grow and expand your business, but how do you look after yourself in all this?
It is paramount that you take breaks for yourself and your body. Get up and walk around the room or go for a walk at lunch.
ACTUALLY take a lunch, get away from the work.
You will be much more productive and creative if you take care of yourself EVERY day!
Knowing yourself and when you work best is also important. When you pay attention to the time that it takes to do certain things you will realize that you are best able to handle certain things at different times of the day. For example, I am writing this blog post early in the morning. It is the best time of day for me to write because my mind is clear and it isn’t being interrupted by the other activities of the day or other people’s agendas.
Pay attention to when you are best able to work and make sure that you clear that time in your day to make it happen. Then you can use focused hustle time and be more effective during those times as well.
Setting your working hours is also important. Focused hustling is all about being clear about what needs to get done in a specific amount of time rather than working all the waking hours of the day.
What hours do you want to dedicate to working? These are the hours that you will schedule your client calls, do your quadrant 2 work, and when you are available for anything related to focused hustle work.
All the other hours of the day are now for yourself and your family. This is how you start to get your life back!
Spend time away from your business.
You probably started your business so that you could have control over your time, so what the hell happened?
I started my business so that I could be more present with my children, so that I would be there before and after school, and that I could attend their school functions and go to the sporting events.
This was my priority above all else, and I am grateful that I was able to do that for my kids. I never missed a hockey game, and I was able to help other kids get to the practices and games when their parents couldn’t get the time off.
Time freedom is why most of us start our business, but the day to day activities of our businesses sometimes keep us from having the life that we dreamed of.
I encourage you to look at what last week looked like in your business. Did you have times where you weren’t working? I mean really not working! No phone with you, not checking social media for questions or updates, not sneaking in a post or two?
Business –life balance starts with deciding to be 100% present in each portion of your life.
When you are working on your business do so with 100% of your focused hustle time, when you are with yourself, or your kids or spouse be 100% present then as well.
Now ask yourself – what do I want my life to look like?
How do you want to spend your time with yourself, and your family? How would a day that is 100% focused on yourself and your family look like?
Start making that happen!
