How to Focus on What Matters Most in Business
There is no shortage of things you could be doing in your business.
You could update your website, create more social media content, attend a networking event, start a podcast, redesign your marketing materials, develop a new product, follow up with prospects, organize your files, take another course, work on your bookkeeping—and somewhere in the middle of all that, actually serve your customers.
The problem isn't that these things are necessarily unimportant. The problem is trying to make all of them important at the same time.
When everything becomes a priority, nothing really is.
And Queen, that can leave you working hard all day while constantly feeling as though you're behind. You may have a long list of things you've accomplished, but the goals that could make the greatest difference in your business keep getting pushed to tomorrow, next week, or next month.
September's Women About Biz theme, “Refocus. Recommit. Fall Forward Into Your Success!”, challenges us to take a different approach. Instead of allowing every task, idea, request, and opportunity to compete equally for our attention, it's time to refocus on what matters most.
Proverbs 4:25-26 reminds us, “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established.”
There is wisdom in knowing where you're going and keeping your attention there.
Let's look at how you can do that in your business.
1. Stop Calling Everything a Priority
One of the quickest ways to lose focus is to have too many priorities.
You may have ten important things that need to happen in your business. But that doesn't mean all ten deserve the same amount of attention right now.
There is a difference between something being important and something being a current priority.
For example, updating your website may be important. Creating a new course may be important. Organizing your files may be important. Building an email sequence may be important.
But if your business needs revenue and you have 20 warm prospects waiting for follow-up, those prospects probably deserve your attention before you spend three hours choosing new photographs for your website.
That's what prioritizing requires: making decisions.
Take a look at everything currently competing for your attention and ask:
What actually needs to happen now?
What can wait?
What has the greatest potential impact?
What happens if I don't do this?
Which activities directly support my current business goals?
Am I treating something as urgent simply because someone else wants it?
You don't have to abandon everything else. You simply need to determine what deserves to come first.
2. Connect Your Priorities to Results
A priority should lead somewhere.
If you're going to give something your limited time, energy, money, and attention, you should understand what result you're trying to produce.
Instead of saying:
- “Marketing is a priority.”
- Get more specific.
- “Generating 25 qualified leads this month is a priority.”
- “I need to work on my website.”
- Perhaps the actual priority is:
- “Complete my service page so prospects have somewhere to learn about and purchase my new service.”
The clearer you become about the desired result, the easier it becomes to identify the work that matters.
Ask yourself:
“What result is this activity supposed to produce?”
If you can't answer that question, you may need to reconsider how much of your time the activity deserves.
This is especially important when you're busy. Being busy can give you the feeling that you're making progress even when your most important results aren't moving.
Don't just measure how much you did.
Measure whether what you did moved something that matters.
3. Learn to Recognize High-Impact Work
Not every task has equal value.
Some activities maintain your business. Some organize your business. Some support your business. And some activities actually help grow your business.
All of them can have a place, but they shouldn't automatically receive equal amounts of your best working time.
High-impact activities might include:
Following up with qualified prospects
Making offers
Having sales conversations
Creating strategic marketing content
Building referral relationships
Serving existing customers exceptionally well
Asking satisfied customers for referrals or repeat business
Completing a revenue-producing project
Developing a system that removes a major bottleneck
Making an important CEO-level decision you've been avoiding
Your high-impact work will depend on your business and your current goals.
The key is learning to recognize it.
At the beginning of each week, ask:
“What are the few things I could accomplish this week that would make the biggest difference in my business?”
Those activities should have a much stronger claim on your calendar than whatever happens to appear in your inbox Monday morning.
4. Watch Out for Productive Procrastination
This one can be sneaky.
Sometimes we procrastinate without appearing to procrastinate at all. You aren't sitting on the sofa doing nothing.
- You're working
- You're organizing.
- Researching.
- Planning.
- Editing.
- Learning.
- Creating.
And yet you may still be avoiding the one activity that really needs your attention.
That's productive procrastination - doing legitimate business activities while avoiding a higher-priority activity that feels harder, uncomfortable, uncertain, or even scary.
- Maybe you keep creating social media posts because calling prospects makes you uncomfortable.
- Maybe you're taking another course because launching your offer feels risky.
- Maybe you keep perfecting your website because you're nervous about actually sending people to it.
- Ask yourself:
“What important task am I avoiding by staying busy with easier tasks?”
Your answer may reveal exactly where you need to refocus. Sometimes your next level of business growth isn't waiting for another strategy. t's waiting for you to do the thing you already know needs to be done.
5. Protect Your Priorities From Distractions
Choosing a priority isn't enough. You have to protect it.
The moment you begin your day, other things will compete for your attention.
Emails arrive. The phone rings. Notifications appear. Someone needs something. A new idea pops into your head. You remember another task. Social media offers an endless supply of distractions disguised as “business research.”
If you don't decide where your attention is going, something else will decide for you. One simple solution is to schedule focused blocks of time for your highest-priority work.
During that time:
Silence unnecessary notifications.
Close tabs you don't need.
Put your phone away when possible.
Avoid checking email every few minutes.
Keep unrelated ideas on a separate list rather than immediately pursuing them.
Let people know when you aren't available except for something genuinely urgent.
You don't have to become unavailable for the entire day. You simply need periods when your priorities receive your full attention. Even one uninterrupted hour spent on the right activity can produce more meaningful progress than several scattered hours of starting, stopping, checking, responding, and switching between tasks.
6. Decide What You Will NOT Focus On
Focus isn't only about choosing what deserves your attention. it's also about deciding what doesn't. Every yes requires time. Every new project takes energy. Every opportunity comes with some kind of cost. Before adding another commitment, ask:
“What will I have less time for if I say yes to this?”
That's an important CEO question.
- You may need to postpone a good idea.
- You may need to decline an opportunity that doesn't fit your current direction.
- You may need to delegate something you've always handled yourself.
- You may need to stop doing something simply because you've always done it.
And sometimes you need to put a great idea in a parking lot and say, “Not now.” “Not now” doesn't mean never. It means you're protecting what matters most in this season.
7. Choose Your Top 3 and Schedule Them
Here's a simple way to put everything we've discussed into practice. Before beginning your week, identify your three most important business priorities. Not your entire task list. Your Top 3. Then identify the actions necessary to move each priority forward.
For example:
Priority: Generate New Clients. Your supporting actions might include:
Contact five potential referral partners.
Follow up with ten warm leads.
Send an offer to your email list.
Now put those actions on your calendar.
Don't leave your highest priorities sitting on a list hoping you'll eventually find time for them.
Schedule them.
Your calendar should reflect what you say matters.
And as the week progresses, keep asking yourself:
“Does what I'm giving my attention to right now support one of my most important goals?”
That one question can help you catch yourself before an entire afternoon disappears into low-priority work.
Refocus on What Matters, Queen
You will probably never reach the point where there is nothing else you could be doing in your business.
That's not the goal.
The goal is to become increasingly confident about deciding what deserves your attention now.
You don't need to accomplish everything this week. You need to make meaningful progress on the things that matter most.
Take a few minutes today and look at your current goals, projects, commitments, and task list. Identify the three priorities that would make the greatest difference in your business right now. Then decide what needs to move down the list so those priorities can move up.
And don't forget to invite God into those decisions. Ask Him for wisdom to recognize what deserves your attention, discipline to stay focused when distractions appear, and discernment to know when something good simply isn't right for this season.
You are the CEO of your business. Part of leadership is deciding where your business needs to go—and then making sure your time and attention are actually taking it there.
Refocus on what matters. Protect your priorities. Take purposeful action. And keep moving your business forward, Queen.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Trina Newby (a.k.a. Queen Trina) is a Business Success Coach, Founder of Women About Biz, blog writer and host of the Successful Woman Radio Show. Through her Crown Club, she helps helped women to experience success in accomplishing their business goals and generate the income they desire. Click here for a FREE Coaching Session to learn ways you can start your online business.