When I have quiet moments to reflect on where I am headed, I like to work through a mental thought process to help ensure I am on the right course. There’s so much noise coming every day that I find it necessary to weed out the noise and focus on what matters.
Perhaps you can relate. There are many good options and they rob you of the best. Here are some things I do to get my mind tuned into what matters:
- Pick Three. It makes me get concrete to limit myself to the three things that are important. I find that three things outshine many others. If I am thinking about projects, I think about which three need 90% of my energy the next week.
- Discard or hand off. Some things are not as important as they used to be. As ideas become projects, they can lose their momentum up against reality. I continually evaluate and either kill the projects or hand off when it makes sense. It’s important, I find, to make the decision clearly with conviction so you don’t second guess yourself.
- Basics. I try to get back to the basics of what makes things successful in a certain area. It helps to identify these and recommit to the actions that move things forward. That may be having more relevant meetings with clients. Or writing more content about a topic.
I think our greatest enemy is everything that is good, which is not necessarily what is the best. It’s hard to detect if we are just busy all the time. It takes intentionality and a willingness to let go.
How can this help you where you are at?