Stay Focused on Your Number One Job
One of the critical aspects of accomplishing tasks is identifying your most important job and keeping the main thing the main thing. If you are in business, the essential task will always be to make sales and ensure your pipeline is filled to have the cash flow you need to move your business forward constantly. When you stay focused on what matters most, it will guide your ability to schedule appropriately and is a prerequisite to identifying your correct next steps.
Rank Priorities
Once you focus on the most important job, all other tasks that support that job will need to be ranked by importance. Once your tasks are identified and ranked, you can sort them into a priority list. For example, client calls may be categorized as the top task, followed by following up and driving sales conversations forward. Number three may be creating social media content and authority platform building. And lastly, checking Facebook – you may even find that it is not a priority at all. When you assign a number of importance to each task, it allows you to stay focused. Now, all it takes is discipline to remain committed to your priorities in their order of importance.
Override Old Programming
Stayin committed to that list is more complicated than it seems because your old programming – the way your brain was wired since childhood – is designed to keep you where you are. If you want to make a fundamental change in your life and move your business forward, you must change your mindset and thought patterns. By shifting your thoughts, you can begin to change your outcome. Accomplishing this shift in thinking requires assessing why you are getting off task. Why are you not making the call you said you would make? Why are you on Facebook when you identified it as the least important task? Identifying why you are off task helps you break the habit and keep your word to yourself, which is a critical element of success.
Hold Yourself Accountable
Discipline is a critical element of getting things accomplished. Once you have identified your main job, ranked priorities, and adjusted your mindset, you must commit to holding yourself accountable. You have to work the list – whatever you ranked as task number one must be accomplished first because it is the essential activity. Another organization piece that works is grouping related tasks. For instance, I record all videos and work on content creation on Fridays so that I can move it forward for the next week. This works for me because I can make this day a firm commitment on my calendar, and all tasks that day are related and help me be prepared for the upcoming week. It’s not so much the way you choose to schedule as it is the commitment to the schedule. Holding yourself accountable to the tasks requires discipline and work, but it is worth it when you see the results.
At the Growth Architect, we want to help you find strategies that will increase your productivity and multiply your results. That’s what we do! If you enjoyed this article, check out my video on setting priorities.
Let’s grow!
Beate
Beate Chelette is The Growth Architect & Founder of The Women’s Code, a training company specialized in providing companies an ROI on Balanced Leadership. She has been named one of 50 must-follow women entrepreneurs by the Huffington Post. A first-generation immigrant who found herself $135,000 in debt as a single parent, she bootstrapped her passion for photography into a highly successful global business and eventually sold it to Bill Gates in a multimillion-dollar deal.
Beate works with business leaders and supports organizations by developing and providing training the training, tools, and expertise to create and maintain a balanced, equal, and inclusive work environment that fosters creativity, employee engagement, and corporate growth.
Recent clients include Merck, Women’s Legislative Caucus of California, Cal State University Dominguez Hills, Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), NFTE, CreativeLive, the Association of Corporate Growth, and TracyLocke.
Beate is the author of the #1 International Amazon Bestseller “Happy Woman Happy World – How to Go From Overwhelmed to Awesome” a book that corporate trainer and best-selling author Brian Tracy calls “a handbook for every woman who wants health, success and a fulfilling career.
To book Beate to speak or train please connect here. Your Time Is Valuable!