Get Focused: 8 Tips to Help You Reach Your Goals

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Do you get new ideas on a regular basis? Do you have trouble staying focused?

I’m one of those people that constantly has new ideas. And, if you’re a creative entrepreneur, I’m going to guess that you’re one of those people, too.

I want to do it all—but I can’t. In order to reach the goals that I’ve set for myself, I have to stay focused.

Here are 8 of my best tips that can help you remain focused and reach your goals:

1. Turn your email off.

Oh boy. I struggle with this one. But, email can be a huge distraction. I used to check it every time I noticed that I had a new email, but then I realized that it can wait for a little while. Now, I close the email window and only open it back up after I’ve completed an item on my to-do list and am taking a quick break. This allows me to focus on one thing at a time, and I can cross off my to-do items much quicker.

2. List all the steps it’ll take to complete your task.

If you’re struggling to stay focused, you might just be confused. For instance, if you’ve decided that today’s the day that you’re going to send out your first newsletter, it could take you a long time if you don’t know all of the steps involved. Once you know exactly how to send your email newsletter, the rest will start to fall into place. Get specific.

3. Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize.

We waste so much time on activities that don’t really help us grow our creative businesses. You can minimize this wasted time by prioritizing your to-do items. Every evening before I write down my to-do list for the next day, I always look at my top 3 goals. I try to include at least one item for each goal. For instance, one of the goals that I want to reach over the next year is to grow my newsletter list to 10,000 subscribers. So, I want to continue to give people a reason to sign up for my newsletter. This might mean that I work on a free ebook or webinar that you get access to if you sign up. Every day, I try to keep this goal in mind.

4. Take breaks.

You need to make sure that you give yourself short breaks throughout the day to recharge and refocus. Every time I complete an item on my to-do list, I take a 10-15 minute break. During that time, I get up and move—sometimes dancing to a favorite song, check my email, grab a quick snack, get a glass of water, use the restroom, and/or check the ARTrepreneur forums. When that time is up {I usually set a timer}, I can focus on my next task feeling more energized.

5. Turn off notifications.

If you have to rush over to your phone every time you notice that you have a new text message, turn off the notifications! Check it during your break time. This also goes for email and any other “dings” that interrupt your flow.

6. Give yourself less time to get something done.

Many times, we take the allotted time given to complete a task. If you know that you have an hour to write your blog post, you might spend 25 of those minutes responding to email and finding pictures for the post on Flickr. If you shorten your time frame to 30 minutes, you’ll be more likely to get hyper-focused and complete the task at hand.

7. Figure out where you’re spending your time.

This can be a huge wake up call. Don’t change the way that you’re spending your time. Instead, carry around a small notebook for 3 days and write down everything that you do and how much time it takes. You might realize that you’re actually watching 3 hours of television every day or that you take 2 hours to get ready in the morning. Imagine what you could do if you only spent 2 hours watching television and you put that extra hour towards your creative business.

8. Track your goals.

If you’ve set a goal that you want to reach by the end of the year, I would suggest taking 20 minutes at the end of every week to note what you did to work towards that goal during that week and how much closer you are to reaching it. This will help you stay on track and focused.

Do you have a tip for staying focused? Please share it in the comments below.

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