Focus

The truth is, there is a ton of profit to be made through many, many methods online, but there’s one thing preventing so many of us from getting anywhere. There are many names for it: information overload, analysis paralysis, not knowing which way to turn. It all comes down to focus.It’s easy to get trapped. Seeing more and more ‘revolutionary’, must-have products pushed at us daily, freeline content (often solid), but with the requirement to opt in. To receive yet another slew of marketing emails.

We get flooded with new techniques, ideas and tools, each allegedly the fastest and best way to get us to where we want to go. This one has made this fellow $46,326.21 in 9.43 days, that one makes that couple $13,442.40 per month. Like the exact figure makes it that much more attactive… Maybe it does.

So we end up chasing around in a dozen directions, never quite getting anywhere. If this sounds like you, don’t worry, you’re definitely not the only one! We need to choose a direction, and diligently stick to that for at least a week, a month, 6 months. It doesn’t matter if it’s not the best direction, as long as it is working (and you’ll soon figure out if it isn’t).

If you are into niche marketing, by all means find several niches in your research phase, but choose one, implement, optimize and then move to the next one. The same is true for many fields, in fact. The concept of multitasking is essentially flawed. Our brains are not wired to switch rapidly back and forth between tasks, in fact they are wired to do one thing for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer so we can get into the ‘flow’. That’s when we work at our peaks.

As an SEO and developer, I find it difficult at times to focus on single projects on a given day, because deadlines are a reality, and things don’t always go according to plan. Getting Things Done unfortunately doesn’t apply to all types of work.

The point is, it’s very important to focus on what you are doing, and chunking your time into bigger pieces so you can get things started and finished, at least most of the time, within a single chunk of time. I’m all for closing down your email client and your Twitter client, maybe even the phone and the door during those chunks, shutting out all those interruptions.

How do you maintain your focus? Are you succeeding, or are you like most other readers, struggling to get things done? Add your comments below.