Focus on Being Focused
As I started Mile 20, I struggled to focus. I had a million action items: register and stand up the business (registration, branding, tools, website, etc.), get new clients, develop toolkits and services - the list went on and on. This was new. Prioritizing when I was in corporate America was rarely a challenge as my team usually had a clear, prioritized backlog of work. What was happening now?
After a while, I realized that I simply had too many things on my priority list. In my inexperience as a first-time business owner, I was assigning all of the things the top priority! I fell into the same trap as many of the Product Owners I’ve coached: if everything is a top priority, nothing is. So I was swimming in work, jumping from one thing to another and not making true progress on anything.
Time to get focused. The first step was to take a hard look at my backlog and honestly prioritize it. Anyone can do this, even if it’s easier said than done. Stack ranking is the best as it forces you to determine the priority level of every action item, but feel free to use prioritization buckets if that’s easier.
Once you’ve rigorously prioritized everything that you have to do, throw away the bottom third of your list. What: are you crazy? I can hear the arguments already: “These are important things, some of which customers have asked for!” I get it.
The thing is that reading and organizing massive lists takes a huge amount of energy. It uses a lot of our brain. And if we’re honest - like really honest with ourselves - we know that we almost never work on what’s on the bottom of our list. In addition, new high priority requirements are coming in every day!
For example, if you’re prioritizing on a scale of 1-5 (1= most important and 5 = not important), throw away all of the 3s, 4s and 5s. Admitting that those nice-to-have items won’t make the cut means we can throw them away. Free the backlog! Use that space for more important things - you know that they’re coming. And the cool thing is: if the requirement really was important, you can just add it back in.
So I’m purging the bottom of my backlog. It’s not easy - in fact, it’s quite painful as there are some really cool things I’m removing. But I’m committed because by letting go of the “nice to haves” I can focus more of my time and energy on finishing what’s essential and important. That focus makes me more productive. And will lead to better outcomes.
What do you need to let go in order to make space for what’s most important in your life?