She said “FOCUS . . . helps users jettison busywork and wasted time and devote themselves to their most valued pursuits.”  She said she found she was spending one-third of her time on unimportant stuff. To fix that, she spent a half-hour in a planning session to identify her values, roles in life and associated goals – those things most important to her. She blocked out time in advance to pursue them and entered tasks day-by-day on her calendar, prioritizing them based on importance.

She said, “By week’s end, I am surprised at how much calmer I feel, as I let insignificant stuff slide; in a spillover benefit, I am able to help my teenage son see that his race to finish a college research project early isn’t truly urgent. Also, in pursuit of the value I place on generosity, I start working early on a holiday gift for my extended family, a photo calendar; not only do I take more pleasure in making it, but I know it won’t be the usual slapdash, last-minute affair. She concluded that in an era when values are often neglected, the FOCUS system is a worthy antidote.

Shellenbarger’s article has reminded me of my own need to reconnect with what is truly important in my life, especially with the holiday season approaching, which of course, means more events added to my schedule, more tasks on my task list and not enough time to accomplish everything.

So, I plan on taking Shellenbarger’s advice and re-identifying my values, my most important roles and relationships and associated goals. I’ll spend some quality time in weekly and daily planning so I am clear on what matters most, not just during the holidays, but always.

Have you seen a difference in your days and weeks when you plan based on your values and goals?

What planning tips do you use to keep you focused?

Author: Debra Lund, Director of Public Relations at FranklinCovey

“I’m not sure why my company hired you, I’m really good at setting goals and I really don’t think I need any help.”

My client, Jeff was partially correct. He regularly set goals for himself and for his team.  Unfortunately, he seldom achieved them – a characteristic that had led his company to suspect he was not be the leader they needed. Hiring me was a final attempt to help him.

As we continued our first planning session, I asked Jeff to share the goals he had set for the coming year. He withdrew a binder from his briefcase and opened it on the table in front of us. 

“This binder contains all of our goals as a team, broken down into four major categories,” Jeff said proudly.

Over the next few minutes, Jeff reviewed the four categories, each of which contained at least five goals. Together, he had set over twenty separate goals for his team, all of which were classified as “high priority.”

When he finished, Jeff leaned back in his chair and said, “Now, do you still think I need help?” With real compassion, I said yes.

Yes, because I know there are 3 actions I knew that Jeff needed to do to reach his goals.

1. Decide what’s important. The first difficulty Jeff faced is one that affects almost every leader – saying no to the relatively important in order to focus on the truly important – which is Discipline 1 in Franklin Covey’s 4 Disciplines of Execution.

Without question, this is easy to say but it’s hard to do. It’s hard to say no to a good idea, even in deference to a great one. It’s also hard to say no to an idea that’s politically correct to support, even if it’s not the right focus. Most of all, it’s hard to say no because limiting your goals increases your risk if you choose incorrectly.

But the more goals you set as “top priority”, the more you spread the focus of your team. Set enough goals and the focus on each one will be so small that it is almost meaningless. Limiting the number of top goals is the only way to ensure that enough time and talent will be applied to achieve exceptional results.

When I forced Jeff to identify the most important goals out of the twenty he had chosen, it was like a root canal without anesthetic, but he eventually narrowed his list to two.

Try deciding what your most important goals are, I would love to hear about your experience…

Check out my next post for #2 Candidly Assessing New Behaviors and #3 Preparing to Follow Through

 Author: Jim Huling Senior Consultant, Execution Practice