Bing! Buzz. Rattle. Another email, another distraction away from what's important. Oh look, Joseph A. Banks is having another sale!!
Focus is key to success in building a business. Every buzz is a distraction from you doing what's most important to achieving your goals right now.
It may seem like reading and responding to every email is a necessary work responsibility, but it is not. Do you often go home and say to yourself, what the hell did I accomplish today? John Wooden said, never confuse activity with achievement.
In growing a business it's ever more important to have focus on your top priorities. Here are 3 steps (behaviors) to staying focused:
- Turn off every notification: phone buzz, email notification, everything. Any distraction will cause a task to take 40% longer...assuming it ever gets done.
- Limit email to 3 checks a day.
- Use rules in Outlook or other mail providers to auto file or delete messages. If you regularly get statements or invoices sent to you, have them auto-forward to the person in your business that handles those things. Emails from your biggest client could be auto--filled into a "Hot" folder. Rules can be set up with many variables like, who sent it, topics, containing specific words, etc. Get creative to direct your in-box and minimize clutter.
Not every email needs immediate attention. Know what your daily and long-term goals are so you can successfully achieve them without being taken "off-course."
~Mark McGraw