Listen below for the entire episode on The Systemize Your Life Podcast

Staying Focused When You Finally Have the Time to Work 

Before you can truly stay focused on the work you need to do, the very first essential step is actually finding the time to get your work done. Therefore, be sure to check out the first part of the Balancing Business Series for the THREE steps you need to be able to successfully balance business and motherhood.

There is nothing worse than that anxiousness of knowing you have something to do while you still feel pulled in numerous other directions, trying to get all the other things on your to-do list. You just want to escape, sit down, and get work done that you know needs to be finished. That is a terrible feeling, but what I think is worse than that is when you feel those things and finally get time to sit down, but you can’t stay focused.

Finding the Time to Get Work Done!

After situating the kids and organizing the time to get work done, you waste every second because you can’t stay focused and don’t know what to focus on. That feeling is so much worse. Searching for lists, wondering which tasks you should do or what is most important, looking for items to complete your tasks, and so many more thoughts. This can be extremely discouraging and frustrating. I have felt this many times, and I think it’s one of the most defeating feelings ever. To get through the obstacles of being able to sit down, and then when you do, you completely blow it. 

Not Being Focused is Holding You Back

Truly this is one of the things that is holding you back the most. Not being able to complete something and make progress is why you aren’t moving forward. It is impossible to make progress if you don’t check off boxes and complete things. But checking off boxes and completing things is impossible when you can’t focus on anything. Therefore, it is really important to stay focused on the one thing that you might be overlooking when it comes to getting focused and knowing what tasks you need to do instead.

Do You Have Your Vision?

Obviously, the most important step in staying focused while you work is getting very clear on your vision. You’ve got to know where you’re headed. Once you have that done and know where you are going and what it is you want to get done, the next step is figuring out what to work on every day to get there.

The Key To Staying Focused is Organization

You’ve got this larger-than-life vision, and now you’ve got to come back down. Did you know that I and every single person on my team, including my interns, know what they need to do daily? They never have to guess what work needs to be accomplished or how long it will take them to do it. This is my zone of genius and what my brain was designed to do. 

There is nothing more powerful than what I’m about to teach you when it comes to making progress, actually moving the needle in your business, and working towards making money. I can look now and see what has helped me grow. Strategy is important, but there needs to be organization too. You can go on the internet and find help with strategy all day, but it is really hard to find a good organizational system, home management system and task management system. That is why I’ve created this series, the Academy, and now Systemize Your Biz. 

Using Task Management to Stay Focused

I couldn’t find anything for myself, so I just created it. I can look at my entire week on Monday and see every single task that needs to be done and what day I need to do it. When I can see my tasks, I can communicate it to my husband, my team, and anybody that needs to know. You can also have that same level of organization and clarity in your work. It is a cohesive task management system that will get you that. 

Will you have to roll up your sleeves, put some elbow grease in, and do some work? Ya – this is not going to be this little thing where I show you the tool I use, and it’ll make all your wildest dreams come true. I do not mean Asana, ClickUp, Trello, and honestly, I don’t even mean MeisterTask (but I do love it!). 

I mean management of your tasks, not a glorified software-derived to-do list with fancy colors and lots of layers. I’m not talking about that at all. I’m talking about you being able to manage your tasks and knowing what needs to be done on which day. I don’t care where you put that information; the foundation is the same. 

The Importance of Using a Task Management System

Imagine if you sat down and had 50 things in front of you that you needed to do, and you didn’t know how to do a lot of them or where to start. These are the tasks swirling around our head at any given moment. All thethings you need to do to grow our business, make money, follow up with clients, produce Instagram content, etc. All of the things that you need to do. 

How do you complete these items without structure or management of your tasks? How do you sleep at night when you don’t know if the work you needed to get done today got done? The endless thoughts of: “Shoot, what about that one task – was it supposed to get done today or tomorrow? Wait, I don’t remember what the date was, oh oh!! I was supposed to do that today; Wait, what was I supposed to do again? When is it due? Who needs access? What does it need to include?” 

There is so much going on that I would not sleep if I did not have a task management system. If you mess with my sleep – watch out. You would not want to be around me if that were the case. I do not know how people are able to function with all of this in their brains.

Group Your Tasks Together to Stay Focused

If you take 50 tasks and divide them by 5 days, you know that you’ve got 10 tasks a day. If you use my magical sauce and take those 10 tasks and group them in such a way that it ends up only being 5 tasks for the day. Now guess what – you’ve got a couple of hours to work when you sit down, and you now have the ability with just those 5 tasks in from of you that tell you exactly what to do, how long to do each of those tasks done, where to click to be able to complete it.

Feeling Empowered and Focused While You Work

When you sit down to work, all those things are right at your fingertips. Are you not going to be more successful? More efficient? You will be able to produce so much more when you are not distracted or overwhelmed. Imagine the feeling of being laser-focused and completing those tasks in half the time it would have taken you any other day. 

You now have the capacity to do one of 2 things. Either close that laptop early and give high fives, prep the meals, finish the laundry, love on those babies, and be present for everything. Or you get to finally be consistent and move the needle in producing and doing work in your business. Over and over again, this will happen to you. It is magical, and it is really truly going to change everything. 

“You get to finally be consistent and move the needle in producing and doing work in your business..”

Instantly Relieve Your Work Frustrations

Every problem that you had when it came to sitting down, with the distractions, frustrations, and fears, will just melt away. Accomplishing work becomes 100% automated at that point because you can visualize how that is going to happen. You are going to be able to focus on that day and that day only. You will stop forgetting things. We are not going to be hanging out in the past or the future anymore. We are going to be able to stay super focused because we know that yesterday we totally smashed our work block. And we know that tomorrow’s work is set up to do that same. 

When Your Work Blocks Just Don’t Happen

Another really cool thing: if you have children, this is a very real part of my life. Often my work blocks just don’t happen because the kids or my husband needs me, or something just pops up, and things don’t go occurring to plan. That’s when this plan becomes magical, and the real unicorn emerges in this process. Because you begin to see, “Oh, okay, I had 3 task cards that I was supposed to do today, but I can’t work at all today – here is my backup. I have the physical and mental capacity to do this after the kids go to bed tonight.”

The Key is Communication

You then have the ability to see and communicate with your team about what you need to get these tasks done. I am able to have complete and utter control over my own success and accomplishing my tasks. I want you to be able to feel that, and I hope that you can sense how passionate I am about this because of what it has done for me. 

The key is getting super focused on what you need to do RIGHT now and what tasks you need to finish every day. So how do you do this, and how do you get started? This is what you are going to do in order to start this process for yourself. 

How An Inventory Can Keep You Focused During Your Work Blocks

In order to stay focused while you work, complete an inventory of your self and business. The first step is to write down on a piece of paper the word Inventory. This is how I have all my students start building their task management systems in their businesses. They get to copy my framework and have sneak peek access to all of my workflows. In order to build a custom workflow that fits your business, you have to do an inventory. An inventory is the most important place to start.

The truth is, you could potentially never do this and grow, there is the possibility. However, you will grow at the expense of your physical, emotional or family’s health. Or at the expense of your marriage or what your house looks like. There will be a cost; 100% will be sacrificing something if you don’t do this.

How To Complete An Inventory to Stay Focused While You Work

1. Complete a Brain Dump

Get out your paper and write down every task that needs to be done in your business weekly. For every single thing that comes to your mind, write it down. 

2. Create Your Buckets

From there, I want you to group all of those tasks into groups, or buckets, that are very similar. Start grouping like with like. Everything that needs to be done for clients; group those together. All of your tasks for photography editing; group those together. Everything to be done to produce a YouTube, podcast, blog, and social media; group those all together. Get them out of the massive space hanging around, where they are always swirling around without rhyme or reason. 

After doing this, you will see a much smaller list. These buckets are now your focal point on what needs to be done. You are no longer focusing on all of the little tiny tasks everywhere. 

Example of what this can look like: 

Take all of the items you need to take for content, let’s say Instagram. You aren’t just going to have one task that says “post to Instagram.” Think of what kind of tasks need to be done to get that post on Instagram. You need to plan, create, and schedule the content. Those are the 3 tasks you will have inside that one bucket. That is so easy to wrap your brain around. 

3. Label each Bucket

With these little tiny buckets of tasks, start labelling them with the days of the week that you actually want to get them done. I highly recommend using MeisterTask to create all these buckets and the tasks embedded inside them. It is my preferred platform. Get in there and build it out. Start moving these buckets of tasks through your week from what needs to be done, what is in progress and what has been completed for the week. When the week is over, move them all back and automate this for yourself. 

Do The Work and Stay Focused

Your only task is to go do your inventory! Doing this inventory, getting all those tasks in your brain, and putting them on paper and into groups will give you incredible relief. 

If you did that and you are excited, and you need to know more about how to set it up in more detail and get into all of the work that I do for my clients, daily, weekly, and monthly, and projects, then you are in the place to jump into Systemize Your Biz. 

Stay Focused and Systemize Your Business

Want to hear something else really cool? I’m releasing every single system I use in my business for the first time ever to you. That’s right, my systems on how to get rid of your to-do list and automate your tasks every single week, plan and repurpose content.

Complete big projects in half the time and stop dropping the ball on those vital parts of your business that are actually needed to make money. They are now all yours! Every single system I use to grow my business form and idea into a multiple 6 figure business while juggling my family, home and marriage is now 100% available to you inside of Systemize Your Biz!

Head over to Systemize Your Biz to learn more about how you can go from overwhelmed to organized in your business in just 4 weeks with my systems. We would love to hear your thoughts and see your progress with your inventory. So come join our FREE Facebook community!