Focus on what matters
IF YOU COULD ONLY DO ONE THING, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
This is a question that most people find challenging to answer – your immediate urge is to list multiple things that you want to do. It’s hard to identify one clear goal and focus all your efforts on achieving it. We live in a fast-paced world, with an emphasis on multi-tasking, and a constant connection to many different media. We have never-ending ‘to do’ lists, countless ambitions and aims, stretching our time and energy thinner and thinner in the process. To quote a recent film title, we want to do Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.
But through all the noise and tasks vying for your attention, what really matters to you? What is your priority? Creating clarity about what you want for the future can help to identify your strengths and purpose. Trying to be something for everyone often ends up meaning you don’t appeal to anyone – your range is too broad. And by having so many demands for your efforts, you inevitably become distracted. If you can focus your energy on prioritising one essential thing, then make sure you give yourself time to do it well.
In one of the episodes of Greg McKeown’s podcast, S2 E5: Eliminate the Nonessentials, he identifies five actions you can take to help you prioritise what’s essential:
1. Win
Ask yourself, what’s important right now?
2. Less
The disciplined pursuit of less. Make a ‘said no to’ list alongside your ‘to do’ list, as a reminder that you can say no to non-essential things.
3. Trade-off
A deliberate strategy to not be everything to all people. Be clear about who you are and what you offer. If presented with two options, don’t say yes to both, decide which trade-off you’re going to make.
4. Intent
Find your purpose. What is essential for you to achieve over the next 2-3 years? If there’s only one thing you can do, what is it?
5. Flow
The genius of routine. Design a routine that makes achieving what you’ve identified as essential the default position. Start slow and small, then if you follow the same routine, it becomes a habit for success.
His process is all about getting the right things done and being fully productive, rather than just constantly busy and unfocused. The word ‘priority’ entered the English language in the 14th century as singular: The very first or prior thing. Yet over time it became plural, ‘priorities’ – but really, how can you have more than one? Surely there will always be one thing that should be ‘the very first’?
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
We recently asked ourselves these questions during our own rebrand. We identified that we were trying to appeal to multiple audiences and took the opportunity to concentrate on our key strengths and expertise, refocusing our energy to the audience who are most important to us – our priority: retail. By being clear on who your target audience is, you can offer them something useful, relevant, and meaningful to their lives.
We use this strategy with our clients as well, collaborating in workshops to identify what their challenges are and helping them to find their focus. We strive to understand their audiences in more detail, learning who the most important customers in their business are and what the benefit is to them. It’s a great way of working out their top priority and setting goals for the future of their brand.
Author Marie Kondo says in her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, “I can’t take proper care of too many things”, meaning that if you have too much stuff then you can’t care for it all as it deserves to be cared for. In the same way you can’t work on so many simultaneous tasks to the best of your ability. You need to declutter, whether that’s in your life or your mind, and let things go to give your full attention to the things that mean most to you – the things that “spark joy”. It’s the only way to focus on what really matters.
“If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will.”