Focusing on what is most important is another simple but hard concept. So many people get lost in the weeds on a subject, task, goal, or objective. They focus on what’s in front of them right now and not what is down the road. The Day-to-day starts to take over and the destination seems to get lost in the fog. This is a dangerous thing, especially in times of crisis (which seems to be the time when most people start getting very short sighted). Focusing on what’s most important and by extension the end results is how you can get further faster. Here I will talk about some aspects of focusing on what’s most important that will hopefully help you to get further faster.
- Have a vision and don’t lose sight
- Have a plan and stick to it
- Filter every action or task
- Automate and delegate
Have a Vision and Don’t Lose Sight
If you’ve studied leadership in any capacity you’ll have heard the term vision before. You probably hear it at team meetings, company town halls, all-hands meetings, or other organizational events, the leadership talking about what the vision is. The reason is that the vision is something that is very easy to lose sight of. The vision, by definition, is a picture for what could and should be. This definition severely underplays the value and power of a strong and powerful vision, however, it is simply that. Vision, like the name suggests is a picture, usually a word-picture or a mental picture. The picture that a vision creates is a preferred future, this is where the power comes in. A vision is more than just a “preferred future”, its not like saying “if I could have it two ways, I’ll take this one” like you would prefer to have Pizza over Hamburgers, it is preferred in that, this picture is what you believe is possible and must happen, that the world is somehow missing something because this vision hasn’t been achieved. I will use the vision on the Natural Resources Canada website “Canada’s vision is to be on the frontlines, fighting climate change, developing tomorrow’s clean energy, driving economic growth and creating good jobs for Canadians.” How is this a vision? It talks about “tomorrow’s clean energy” and “economic growth” and “creating good jobs”. These are all pictures of what the future will look like, it will have clean energy, the economy will have grown, and good jobs will have been created to support this picture. But why is it so compelling? Because those who crafted this vision (and anyone who reads it) feels the passion and conviction that if the world does not have clean energy, economic growth, and good jobs then something is seriously missing. In terms of climate change, the data suggests that there is literally a life or death situation here. If individuals lose sight of this vision, the world as we know it will no longer exist. This is why its so important to have a vision and not lose sight of it.
Have a Plan and Stick to it
Having a vision is great, I’m sure that you know of many organizations that have a vision. Usually its “to be the best…” or “to be the only…” or “to go where nobody has gone before…”. But pause for a moment and consider, what is being done to fulfill this vision? Are people sitting in board meetings discussing how they can be the best, the only, or go where nobody has gone before? And if so, what outcomes of these meetings are furthering the organization to these ends? If there is a compelling vision, there needs to be a plan to achieve it. So, for yourself and your contribution to a larger organization (whether its your workplace, family, or other group you are a part of) make sure you have a plan to be able to fulfill the bigger vision. As with any organization, there’s usually more than 1 person in the organization (I’m sure that you’re not the only person in your family or at your workplace unless you’re a solopreneur), so you only have to contribute to a part of the bigger vision. Review the vision and find the parts that you can directly impact. If you are in HR for Natural Resources Canada, then your plan may contribute to creating good jobs and you may do this by seeking opportunities to craft better job descriptions with hiring managers. If you’re in a research and development, then your contribution may be to developing new ways of generating clean energy by focusing more on reducing the cost of solar panels. Whatever your role, create a plan that answers the “how” behind your contribution to the vision. The last part, stick to it. Your plan may need some tweaking as no plan is perfect, but if its good, it won’t need to be changed too drastically. But whatever your plan or your tweaks, don’t deviate from the plan. If your plan is to craft better job descriptions with hiring managers, then don’t deviate from that. If you’re finding that this isn’t working the way you expect then you can tweak the plan slightly by working with recruiters to post better job postings to get better talent and subsequently create better jobs. But, whatever you do, don’t deviate from that plan or the tweaked version of the plan.
Filter Every Action or Task
This principle is really a principle of discipline. You may be asked to take on new tasks or projects when you’re working with an organization. This is good to do, but before you agree to a task, filter it through a simple question “does this help me contribute to the vision?” The answer may be “yes”, “no”, or “indirectly”. When the task directly contributes to the vision, then that is a slam dunk, absolutely agree to the task or project. If the task indirectly contributes to the vision then you can agree, but, it isn’t as clear cut. First, understand how it does contribute to the vision. If you work in sales and you’re asked to be responsible for managing the client database, that role indirectly contributes to vision of making more sales. You may not be selling directly to clients in the database, but if the database isn’t managed and maintained then old information will prevent sales from being made. If, someone asks you to ensure the coffee pot is always topped up, that task is not contributing to the vision. Although, the argument could be made that the topped up coffee pot will help the sales people make more sales and not waste time making coffee, the actual measurable effect would be negligible. Keep focused on the things that most directly contribute to the vision and execute every task in such a way that it most closely contributes to the vision. If maintaining the customer database is what you’re asked to do then you can do that in such a way that all the sales people have what they need, perhaps meet with a few sales people and clarify their needs so that you can provide better information in the customer database. Ask what their pain-points are, and work to alleviate those pain-points so that they can focus on their contribution to the vision. But, do everything in your power to focus your efforts on tasks that contribute to the vision.
Automate and Delegate
If you’ve ever heard of the Eisenhower matrix it is 4 quadrants that are made up of degrees of urgency and degrees of importance. Below, I have linked to a blank Eisenhower Matrix that you can fill-out and/or print. I have also included a brief description of the 4 boxes below:
- Urgent and Important – Do these tasks right away
- Urgent but Not Important – Schedule
- Not Urgent and Not Important – Automate and Delegate
- Important but Not Urgent – Spend most of your time here
As this section is titled automate and delegate I’m going to spend a little bit of time on the not urgent and not important tasks. As this was presented to me initially, it was from a leadership perspective and the idea was that leaders need to be living in this matrix and they had the ability to delegate tasks to their direct reports. If you’re like me, however, you don’t have anyone to delegate to! This is why I’ve added the automate. We live in a world of technology where automation can be done a lot quicker and easier than ever before. If you don’t have the ability to delegate tasks, then look to automate them. This step may need to start with turning the task into a standardized process before it can be automated, but, these steps fall into the “Important but not urgent” section whereby, if you don’t do them, they will not get done and you will be the only one that will notice they haven’t been done. Another benefit of spending most time in the Important but not urgent quadrant is that you can plan away the urgent and important tasks and complete them before they become urgent. In order to get further faster and focusing on what’s most important, you need to spend most of your time doing the tasks that are important but not urgent and trying to spend as little time as possible in the other 3 quadrants.
The ideas here may seem simple, and they should be. The ideas here are definitely not easy, if they were, everyone would be doing them! But if you want to get further faster, the biggest way is to not get distracted by what’s outside of the most important things. Incorporate these principles and you’ll find yourself going further and faster than you thought you could.