How to move your business forward in a world FULL of distractions!

Do you spend your days jumping from answering emails to checking or posting on social media? 

Do you feel as if you never get any meaningful work done?

Are you continually responding to the ping of a notification? A constant distraction?

Firefighting enquiries and dealing with the immediate work in front of you.

When you get to the end of the day, do you have any idea what you have done? Or have you just dealt with emails and messages all day?

Let's be honest, you are not a receptionist, and building a business is so much more than dealing with emails.

When running a business, it seems as if the list of tasks is endless!

• Marketing

• Accounts

• Product development

• Sales

• Planning

• Goal setting

• Vision for the business

• Staff management

• HR

And the list goes on!

None of these is easy to do whilst also doing a million other things!

For more tips on productivity read this blog post too -

“Why multi-tasking is killing your business growth!

Think of the tasks within your business at a 'per hour' rate. Is the job worth £10 per hour, £100 per hour, or perhaps even £1000 per hour.

If you are answering the incoming calls, this is probably a £10 task. 

If you are pitching to a new client, this could be a £100 task.

But if you are trying to develop a new product, this could generate massive income for your business and be a £1000 task.

Looking at your plans for the business, they are likely to be £1000 per hour tasks. Big picture jobs that take a lot of time to think about, and FOCUS!

But you are probably putting them off because you can't find the time to do those tasks. After all, you are running around like a headless chicken dealing with everything else as well. 

What would your business look like if you had this task completed?

Would you be selling more?

Would it be making more profit?

Would you have more time?

Or perhaps it would help the staff, and make their jobs easier?

Imagine if you spent your valuable time working on projects that will increase your business?

Maybe you need to develop a new product?

Or, in my case, I may need to write an ebook to sell. 

I will never get it done if I am constantly giving in to distractions.

If this sounds like you, it might be helpful to look at the 'Deep Work' concept to help you focus and make progress in your business that will impact and help you grow.

Deep work is an excellent book written by Cal Newport. The subtitle is "Rules for focused success in a distracted world". And do we ever live in a distracted world!?

Cal Newport has since said that one of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you can master this skill, you will achieve extraordinary results.

And who doesn't want to achieve extraordinary results?!

The basis of the concept is that you should find your flow state to make real progress on your projects. 

No distractions, no emails, no calls.

Just head-down focus for a window of time - usually no more than an hour or two.

This means no customers, or staff interrupting you. And no TV on in the background!

Turn your phone off or put it on 'do not disturb' mode.

It may take a few minutes to get into your ‘flow state’, but you will be amazed at how much work you can get done once you are there.

And this work is meaningful and will have a significant impact on the business.

We are all guilty of having a great business idea, maybe even making a start on it, and then getting bogged down in the day to day tasks. 

So think of those ideas that you have had or those half-done projects. 

Imagine your business with those tasks up and running - what does it look like?

Are you selling more? Do you have more new enquiries? More money??

Why not give it a go then - get those projects completed and get more customers and sales?

Seems crazy NOT to get them done now doesn't it? Why wouldn't you get something finished that is going to make you more money in your business?

Schedule an afternoon in your diary, and arrange to work somewhere that will be free from distractions. 

This is probably going to mean that you will not be in your shop or office. 

I am currently writing this blog post from the waiting area of the garage whilst my car has an MOT - there is absolutely nothing else to do, so no distractions.

Carl Jung famously built a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind.

And a social media pioneer bought a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book, free from distraction in the air.

There is no need to go to these extremes, really, but maybe you go to a coffee shop? Or sit at the park?

Put your phone somewhere else and turn off your email notifications.

Nothing will happen in that few hours that can't wait.

You are not missing out on anything important - I promise!

Prepare a little in advance by planning what you need to do, don't waste your valuable deep work time by thinking about what you will do.

You have a window of approximately 2 hours before your brain will start to turn to mush, and the work you produce will not be as good. 

Don't waste that critical window of time! 

Make a list of all of the things that you need/want to get done.

Then categorise that list into 'shallow' work, i.e., the tasks that will not take too much concentration, and 'deep' work, the jobs that will require focus and your full attention.

Then, when it is game time, GET ON WITH IT!

You will be amazed how slowly an hour goes by and how much work you can get through without constant distractions.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.

It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. 

Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfilment that comes from craftsmanship. 

In short, deep work is like a superpower in our increasingly competitive twenty-first-century economy. 

And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep—spending their days instead in a frantic blur of email and social media, not even realising there's a better way.

Why not give it a go?

Turn off your phone, mute notifications and get some serious work done. 

The feeling of accomplishment when you get that project completed is worth it alone, but by getting it done, you could be improving your business hugely and therefore increasing income.

I like to schedule an afternoon every week to focus on projects that will move my business forward. This is my Deep Work time, and it has made a world of difference to my business, and my income!

You can find Cal Newport's book here if you would like to read it yourself.