How to Stay Focused When Life is Banging On Your Office Door

**This article was originally published in the Change One Thing ezine September 25, 2003

There always seems to be 10 things going on at once in my life. In fact I’ve yet to meet anyone who has only one thing happening in their life at a time. The issue of too many things to do and too little time certainly comes up a lot when I have conversations with people who are taking on new projects in new areas. Since just about everything I’ve done in the last 2 ½ years has been one first time event after another, I’m becoming some kind of expert in doing unfamiliar things.

For example:

I have had a major health crisis to deal with while planning a 3 week trip to China, and closing a deal on a house in country I didn’t live in while traveling between the U.S., Mexico and the afore mentioned China.

While I was preparing for my first live event, my husband decided to change jobs, so we are moving to a new area in 2 weeks. In the middle of all this I had a last minute opportunity to attend an important seminar. So I stopped what I was doing and flew to Las Vegas for 5 days. Yes, that shortened the amount of time I had to finish working on my seminar, but as you may have guessed, I perform well under pressure.

Which leads me to the big question:

What does it take for you to stay focused on your most important task at hand when the rest of your life is knocking on your office door?

I have 7 keys to staying focused under pressure I’d like to share with you.

1. Having a clear vision of where your life is going makes it much easier to stay focused. You have a roadmap to follow. Because you have a vision of your end result, you know exactly what to do and why you are doing every single. Prioritize those steps you need to take so they are taken care of in the order you need to finish your project, not what’s hard or easy.

Now you have a yardstick to measure all the things that pop up in your life. Projects have an order that needs to be followed. The majority of the time you can’t start on the next thing and do it well without having completed the step before it.

2. Schedule your time with a large block for your primary project and short periods before, after, or a short break in the middle of your day to take care of equally important tasks from the rest of your life. You’ve got to eat. You may be responsible for feeding others as well. So it’s unrealistic to think everything else in your life is going to stop so you can work exclusively on your project. It’s about how much time you dedicate for what.

3. Life goes on. Take into account the things in your daily life you absolutely have to have done and see how many of them you can hire out or delegate to someone else. Don’t spend your time doing $10 an hour work unless it’s something that gives you a great deal of pleasure.

Some people find cleaning to be relaxing and a good time to think and be creative. I’m not one of them, but if you are, go ahead and do it. Ask yourself, “If I stop what I’m doing now to do this other thing, is it taking me closer to my end goal?” If it isn’t, don’t do it! It can either be put off or passed off to someone else. Sometimes you have to just say no!

4. Stuff happens. There will be those days where you have unavoidable interruptions to your schedule. At the end of the day, anything that didn’t get finished moves into a priority position the next day. Always review your schedule for the next day before ending your work day. It will help you to sleep better at night when you are organized and clear on what your next step is. Also, it gives your subconscious mind time to start working on the tasks for the next day so they go quicker and smoother.

5. Stick to the plan. Put on blinders and do the first thing that needs to be done. When that is finished, do the very next thing that needs to be done. The best way I know how to be fully present in what you are doing is to look at what the very next step you have to take and nothing else except your end result.

When you look at each and every step along the way, it’s overwhelming. When you look down this same road and realize you don’t have a clue what those steps are, you will be immobilized by fear as well as overwhelmed.

6. Set deadlines for yourself. These may be real event deadlines or a self-imposed deadline. Having a deadline aids you in breaking your project down into small easily handled chunks. These chunks are the steps you take, one after another. You may not be in a position where you know how long a chunk is going to take, but you need to make a commitment to take one step at a time. Don’t do a little of this and a little of that. If you do, you’ll never know if you are on track or if you will even have all the pieces put together when you get to the end.

7. Don’t beat yourself up when things don’t go according to plan. As hard as you try, it’s impossible to do everything perfectly, so don’t set yourself up with those expectations. If you are growing and expanding, you are doing things you’ve never done before.

Although you are planning things as best you can, because you are doing something new, allow for the fact that there may be some steps you didn’t know about when you created your plan. Be flexible enough to take whatever comes in stride.

So let’s go back to the example I just mentioned about making the decision to stop in the middle of preparing my seminar to attend another seminar on the spur of the moment. All 7 of the steps we just talked about made that possible.

Real Life Example:
1. I created a vision for my life 2 ½ years ago. That plan is like a software program running in the background all the time. I don’t have to consciously think about it, but it organizes everything else.

2. I schedule my time in blocks, so if I need to move those blocks around to fit in something that comes up, I can easily see if that is possible. I rearranged my blocks to go away for 5 days and still coordinate what it’s going to take to move our household with my husband through phone conversations.

3. I must confess, I am still in the process of ridding myself of doing a lot of those $10 an hour chores, but I am getting better at delegating and saying no.

4. I constantly have my eye on my schedule, so if I choose to do one thing while I’m scheduled to do something else, I readjust my schedule or speed things up.

5. Because I had a plan I could look at where I was and what I still had to do to see if it was possible to take 5 days out of my schedule and still finish on time.

6. So I set a new deadline for myself of what I wanted to have finished before I left and made sure I met my new deadline.

7. Above all, I stay flexible.

If you would like additional help with this process, I would encourage you to grab an application for the Platinum Inner Circle by sending me an email.

Until next week, I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Just comment on this post on my blog at http://www.LynnPierce.com

If you would like personal mentoring, send me an email detailing what you would like help with.  As your mentor I hold a bigger vision for you than you hold for yourself.  When you have faith and a team that believes in you, it gives you courage.  When you don’t have to do it all yourself, all things are possible for you.  Commit today to go for your dream 100%.

Lynn Pierce, the Success Architect, has taught people how to combine business and personal development to reach the pinnacle of success and live the life of their dreams for over 25 years. In addition, she is also the founder of one of the most exciting annual events for women entrepreneurs, “Empowered Women’s Business  Summit“. Now she shares her keys to success and life mastery with you at http://LynnPierce.com

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