how do you stay focused and on track? it's driving me crazy all the information just becomes scrambled that nothing gets done. Information overload on a daily basis.
Does anyone use a list to accomplish goals? Why does it seem as soon as I read something and consider, that will work, and how to make it work, I read something better?? So far I have semi accomplished the following.
got niche
got article
have web 2.0's
have youtube vids
have a couple yahoo answers
have a couple forums
Stuck at what to do with it, get discouraged and frustrated that what I have so far, will get no where.
Mark, this is a question for the ages, "how do you stay focused and on track?"!
Below I have outlined 4 key areas /steps that have helped me to stay focused, which cover developing a plan, remove distractions, limit for success and planning your tactic.
1. Developing a Plan
If you read enough of my posts here and other places, you will always see me encouraging people to make sure they have a clear plan.
In this case, I would ask you, do you have a plan? What is your financial goal? Is it a tangible goal or a nice to have some day goal? Have you written it down? Have you memorized it?
I know, I am sounding crazy, but all of these initial practical steps of setting up goals is important. A great book you can read or listen to is
Think and Grow Rich, which is a very enlightening book and can help you to gain traction on this first step.
Out of all this you should have a personal and financial goals that will drive you and what you do.
2. Remove Distractions
However, having goals or a plan is nice, but action is what matters. Therefore in order for you to succeed you need to proceed with removing all activities that create barriers to your action. Maybe you need to stop checking email, posting on forums, reading new blogs, reading new books and talking to others until you really know 1 tactic well!
I found this time management tool,
Windows Blocker, to be very helpful in making sure I stay focused and as
dubious suggests, the Pareto principle is a great way to manage things. The tool is based on that method. *I don't own the tool, so feel free to love or hate it.
Once you have removed barriers, then as suggested, you need to pick a tactic, until you have mastered it. It doesn't mean that you can't go back to these other great ways to make money, but for the time being, just place them on pause and really focus in.
3. Limit for Success
*Since you already have a list you can skip this next paragraph *
Finding the best tactic might be a challenge because you, like almost everyone else, loves knowledge and learning and knowing more stuff. Therefore, you need to list out all of the known tactics (If you have been studying all this for some time, you might have 20 ideas.), that you know of, right now, and from that list begin to see if you have any of the skills and abilities to make it work. You might bring down that list to 3 - 5.
From the list of ideas that you have or have worked on before, pick 1 or 2 that you know you would be super excited about and want to really learn. This is the tactic you should go after.
4. Planning Your Tactic
Now, just like you created a general plan for your goals, personally and financially or have them outlined, do the same exact thing with your tactic. Plan out how you are going to make it work. This might take some time, but in your plan give yourself clear dates and milestones when you will start doing the work. These goals should initially be very broad and then very details, starting over a year, then monthly, then weekly, then daily if need be.
Practically speaking, when planning things, you just need to outline everything that you will need to do to make the tactic successful. Think about the process, the finances, the software, the hardware, the customer support(if needed), how you might scale it, etc. You can do all of this fairly quickly if you are focusing on just one tactic... hard to do it, if you have 10 to think about... But, since you only chose
one, you wont have to worry about that. right?!?
So, after all this, you will have your personal/financial goals and your business/ tactic goals.
Whew! All of the above planning should not take you more than 2 weeks and if it does, you might be plagued by other things that interfere with your time, so again try that windows blocker.
Additionally, what helps me, daily I track my activities on a whiteboard. It also has financial goals and business goals I am trying to accomplish. This all helps!
Finally, I truly hope this will help you in your business and decisions for which tactic to go with!
Best of luck!
Shawn
