6 steps that will help you focus strategically on your business

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you started a business because you didn’t want to work for anyone else. But at some point, reality caught up with you. Your new boss makes you work all day and you soon discover that you are even worse than your past boss.

But how do entrepreneurs get a better work-life balance and still achieve their goals? In one word: focusing.

Steve Jobs said that the focus is not deciding what to do, but what not to do.

People often agree that narrowing the focus can be very useful, but few know how to do it. This is because they are often not clear on how to focus on a practical level.

Here are six steps that will help you focus strategically on what is most critical to your business. It will also help you achieve more and work less:

1. Monetize your to-do list

Determine the financial value of completing each task on your list; that is, give each slope a value in pesos. For example, if calling your number one customer can generate $1 million pesos in annual sales, write: Call ‘Pedro’ ($1 million).

2. Organize your listing in descending order

It’s that simple; arrange your earrings according to their value in pesos, from more to less.

3. Divide your list

Draw a line in the middle of your list that separates the most important tasks from the least.

4. Use four days a week to work at 50 percent.

Focus completely on the first issue and finish it completely before moving on to the next. If you discover that you can’t finish it until someone else does their part, then move on to the next pending item on your list.

5. Use one day a week to complete the other 50 percent.

By forcing yourself to work on the less important tasks on a single day, you may not be able to finish them and some of them may stay there for weeks. This is normal, but it will allow you to focus on what’s really important.

6. Re-evaluate your list every week

Eliminates tasks that have become obsolete. If you keep slopes that don’t have a defined goal for weeks, then you’ll discover how unimportant they are.

It would be easier to remove these tasks from the beginning, but you’ll probably find it difficult, so using this strategy will allow you to ignore them over time.

If you have hundreds of opportunities in your top list, you’ll probably leave tasks like fixing your business logo, going to an appointment with someone who will give you advice, or similar topics at the end. The approach is not free; in order to have good results working less, you will probably have to sacrifice some good opportunities to attend the great ones.

You should devote most of your time and energy to working on the activities that have the most impact. When you take these steps continuously for an extended period of time, you will notice that your sales increase substantially. With more money in your pocket, you’ll be able to hire staff to make your earrings less important, while you spend your time attending to the tops.

The key to focusing is to ignore banal tasks and double the time spent on the things that make the big differences. If you do, little by little you will begin to love your new boss more.

Productivity