No Time to Focus on the Big Picture? Try Focus Management

No Time to Focus on the Big Picture? Try Focus Management

E-mail, voicemail, "got a minute?" interruptions, multiple projects and competing priorities. Whether it is in work or in life, we all understand the importance of "seeing the forest for the trees." But with so many "trees" competing for your attention, it's tough to find the forest, never mind spend much time there. The challenge today is not so much time management, but focus management. In other words, if you want to focus on the big picture, you need to manage not time, but focus ? yours.

Here are seven Focus Management® best practices that you can begin using today:

Plan for success. Do you spend more time preparing for a two-week vacation than planning important aspects of your work or life? If so, take time out to do some short- and mid-range planning of your current goals and projects. Long-range plans are useful for setting a direction. In terms of taking action though, 60-day plans tend to work best. Ask yourself: What high-impact, multi-step goals or projects do I need or want to begin this month and next?

Differentiate the forest from the trees ? in writing. You make lists and lists of trees. But where do you keep your forest activities? Committing the big picture to writing gives it a fighting chance. Label a page in your organizer or a screen in your PDA: Current Goals & Projects. As you prepare your list, be careful not to mix the forest in with the trees. Doing so forces your subconscious to choose between "develop strategic plan" and "send e-mail." Given the choice, the higher pay-off activity will lose every time. That's because the brain skips the "big verb" activities (e.g. plan, coordinate, develop, research, revise, etc.) associated with the forest in favor of smaller, more manageable verbs like "call," "e-mail," or "buy" that make up the trees.

Put a stake in the ground. The timeline for completing some goals and projects are clear ? the new network must be up in two weeks, taxes must be filed byApril 15th, the sales report is due at month's end. Then there are the goals and projects that languish for lack of an externally imposed deadline. Giving each of your current goals and projects a target date to shoot for not only helps you create a plan to reach it, but is motivating as well. Bonus benefit: When your boss throws you yet another big project, use your Current Goals & Projects plan as a basis for clarifying priorities and renegotiating due dates.

Keep your list visible. With so many trees competing for your attention, you need to make the forest as conspicuous as possible. Seeing your goals every day also helps make them real. If a goal isn't "in your face every day," says Drew Carey, "it's a wish, not a dream." Force yourself to tune into the big picture by making your Current Goals and Projects list the first thing you see when you open your paper or electronic organizer.

Begin the day by scanning the forest. Use the time while your e-mail is downloading to reflect on your Current Goals & Projects list. Then apply this Big Picture 80/20 Rule which says that 80% of our results ? in work and in life ? come from just 20% of our efforts. If your goal or project requires concentrated time ? for example, connecting with key clients or staying in shape ? block out 20% of your day to spend on these activities. If the project requires juggling lots of small steps, make sure that for every 10 trees you fell in a day, at least two (20%) relate to the big picture.

Use the Next Actions approach. When you're juggling five different initiatives, each with anywhere from 10 to 100 plus steps ? it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Yet no matter how large the undertaking, one simple reality remains the same: There may be many steps, but there is always only one "next action." Say you have to manage a major software conversion. The next action might be to create a project plan. Can't make a plan until you talk to Fred? Next action: Call Fred. As an ancient proverb reminds us: "To move a mountain you must begin by carrying away small stones."

Manage mental interruptions. You sit down at your computer to work on an important document when suddenly three other files open unprompted. How easy do you think it would be to stay focused? This is exactly the way your brain operates. You're in the middle of one thing when your subconscious breaks in to remind you of something else ? like calling Fred. Rather than cut short your high impact work, address the mental interruption by taking a few seconds to add "call Fred" to your list of next actions. In other words, if you think it ? ink it!

The trees are a constant and sometimes relentless part of life. If you find that the trees are overtaking the forest, the key is to manage your response to the big picture and the details through more effective focus management. Gain control over your attention and you gain greater control over your life.

You are welcome to reprint this or any of our productivity-enhancing articles in your organization's newsletter or on your web site providing the following attribution and hyperlink appear with each article.

©2004 Time/Design. To learn more about Time/Design's Focus Management® tools, training, and coaching call 800-637-9942 or visit www.timedesign.com

Time/Design is a leading provider of time management training and tools offering practical and realistic strategies for managing commitments, communications and information.  To learn more about Time/Design's Focus Management® tools, training, and coaching call 800-637-9942 or visit www.timedesign.com

RELATED ARTICLES Spotlight on Productivity: How to Overcome E-Mail Overload Do you ever feel overwhelmed by e-mail? Have you ever spent more of your day wading through your e-mail than managing your work? Are you looking for ways to spend less time creating, managing and answering messages? Discover how to overcome e-mail overload and be more productive by writing more effective e-mail messages and reducing the volume of e-mail. Creativity and Innovation - Large Firms Versus Small Firms There is a pervasive assumption that small firms are more creative and innovative than larger firms. That is, they identify problems and generate ideas (creativity) and idea select, develop and commercialise (innovate) those ideas to a greater degree than larger firms. However, there is a large degree of untruth to this assumption: Managing People - No One Shows You What To Do Imagine the following scenario - you pay a visit to your doctor one day and in the course of the conversation he or she lets it slip that they have no formal medical qualification. However, everything's okay because they've been involved in the "doctoring" business for years, had lots of experience and have read several books on the subject; I bet you'd be out of there like a shot. Learn About Commercial Collections Agencies Fees As with any other service, there are good and bad commercial collection agencies. Beware of any agency that offers you cut rate commissions far below the accepted Commercial Law League rates, offers you kickbacks on commissions, or makes outlandish promises about recovery success. What are Your Best Practices? Best Practices Studies Team Motivation - Tough Enough to Care Sir Alex Ferguson has just celebrated his 1000 game in charge of Manchester United, probably the world's most successful soccer team. Innovation Management ? the Root of the Problem Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation. What Consultants Want You to Know (But You Never Ask) I've been both a CEO and a consultant, so I've seen from both perspectives what goes right and what goes wrong when a consultant comes in to a company. Generally the CEO or the manager who hires the consultant tells the consultant what he or she wants. Often the manager is frustrated with something that is happening at the company and expects the consultant will have the expertise to "just fix it". While the manager needs to set the expectations, of course, the consultant rarely gets to voice what he or she knows would make the consulting engagement more successful for both. Five Ways to Influence Change in Others Because of my work as a consultant, trainer and coach I deal with change and people's reactions to it all the time. When a Client decides to work with us, they are recognizing that some sort of change is needed. After all, if they want more effective teams, better Customer Service, higher creativity, more effective training, or more effective leadership in their organizations, something has to become different than it is currently. Change must occur. The Top 10 Things They Don?t Teach You In Business School Here are 10 subjects that academia should be teaching their students in business school: Effective Meetings by Phone - Part 2, How to Hold a Teleconference Even a well-planned teleconference can go poorly. Some people treat any meeting as a casual social activity instead of as a serious business project. And a teleconference brings special challenges because people attend them in the privacy of their office without being able to see or be seen by the other participants. 5 Steps to Continuous Process Improvement Part One of Creating Well-Defined Processes Series What to do When You receive a Bad Check As a small business operator, personal checks may be one method to receive payment for your goods or services. As a way to receive payment, a personal check is actually better than credit cards because the fees are less and there can be no charge back. 14 Ways to De-Stress Employee Vacations Employees truly deserve paid vacations. They Eliminate Performance Anxiety Forever You've had many years of training in your craft as a performer, singer, actor etc. but if you still feel haunted by the ravages of Performance Anxiety your career may be in serious jeopardy. If You Build It, Investors Will Come When you begin to write your business plan or a section within it, you probably ask yourself, "What should I talk about? What key points should I bring out that are important to potential investors?" 50 Great Ways to Motivate and Not Break the Bank Quick, Easy, and Even Fun! Knowledge Mapping This module focuses on the basics of Knowledge Mapping, its importance, principles, and methodologies. Provisioning/User Management System Upgrades: Part I -- Ten Reasons Why Not To Do An Upgrade Tommy Sherman daily monitors a helpdesk-provisioning queue for a large company. The current provisioning/user management system was written with homegrown software. It has not had a major update for several years. Each day, he is getting more and more frustrated. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot keep up with the increasing workload. New employees are screaming for their system ids and have no way of checking their id creation status. Existing employees are demanding timely updates to their ids when they transfer across business units. Ex-employees exist in the system months after departure. His frustrated manager will be meeting with him this afternoon to talk about his "unresponsiveness." Develop Your People and Make More Money What is the no. 1 asset in your business beside yourself? It's your people.Then why is it they often fall to the bottom of the list when it comes to doing anything to help them improve their performance and look after them?