Focusing on priorities

During a coaching session this afternoon, my client mentioned that he felt like he was spinning his wheels, working hard but feeling as though he was getting nowhere. I shared the following exercise with him, and he went away suitably shocked into action. I thought it might be helpful to share the exercise on LinkedIn and ask for readers’ feedback.

Step One – Get into a relaxed, focused state, where you steer clear of the 101 emails in your inbox or the dozen calls you need to make.

Step Two – Write down your top ten priorities or things that you want to achieve. Follow the usual brainstorming rules and avoid pausing for evaluation at this stage. Just write down what comes into your head.

With face-to-face clients, we tend to focus on business priorities first and expand gradually into priorities for home and personal life. It’s up to you but for this exercise I suggest imposing no limits on what you write down.

Step Three – Go and grab a coffee (or other drink of your choice). I drink a lot of coffee during coaching but anything that gives you a short break will do.

Step Four – Think back over the last couple of weeks and jot down how you have spent your time. If you can, assign rough percentages against each activity.

Step Five – You’ve guessed this step. Compare your two lists:

• How much (if any) of your time have you spent on your priority goals?
• Are there goals that you’ve not worked on at all?
• What have you spent time on that doesn’t appear on your priority list?

Step Six – Decide how you will adjust what you’re focused on for the next couple of weeks.

Step Seven – Drop a comment and let me know what changes you’re going to make (if any, of course).

Like most of the exercises I take clients through, it’s very simple and tends to have a major impact.

Relax and enjoy.

Here at Your Business Mindset, we focus on getting to the source of any performance issues. It’s unlikely that we’ll teach your people new techniques. We’ll uncover what is holding them back and then each individual will come up with their own system to achieve what the business needs. When people come up with their own solution, they drive their own performance.

Head over to www.yourbusinessmindset.com) to find out more about our approach and how your business can benefit from our expertise and experience.