Have you ever tried to focus on a task while sitting in your office and found it impossible to stop being distracted? As a small business owner, staying focused on the task at hand can be challenging. We wear many hats, and it can be overwhelming when it’s just you doing the work day in and day out. I genuinely believe that it is possible to be effective in your day-to-day tasks. Here are tips on how to stay focused to help you successfully manage your small business.
Topics to help you stay focused during the day
- Eat a healthy meal with protein for breakfast and lunch.
- Physical Movement Breaks
- Be Creative in the AM
- Have a Quiet Space
- Time Block is Key
- Minimize notifications
- Managing Client Interruptions
- Read out loud to stay focused.
- Determine your Energy Level
- The power of doing a single task.
- Have a regular one-day off policy.
- Schedule a day to review/recap the week.
- Shut Down Ritual
- Schedule Time for personal and family.
- Make Yourself Accountable.
Eat a healthy meal with protein for breakfast and lunch.
Eating food that provides you with energy will help keep your blood sugar levels balanced and minimize brain fog.
Physical Movement Breaks
It is essential to move throughout the day, even if it is just for 5 minutes. When you feel stuck, get up and do some stretching. When you feel frustrated, take a 15-minute walk. Even using the restroom can help you refocus.
Be Creative in the AM
Do creative and more time-consuming projects first thing in the morning. This way, you will be at your sharpest while doing the task, and when you are tired, you can focus on mundane routine tasks.
Have a Quiet Space
Find a quiet place and remove distractions, such as a TV or background noise. This could even be going out of the home to work at a nearby coffee (affiliate) shop. I prefer to use earbuds to minimize distractions.
If you don’t have a quiet space, consider getting some noise-canceling headphones or earbuds to keep the noise at bay.
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Time Block is Key
For specific tasks, assign a time of day to work on them. For example, if you need to submit your paperwork for a client on a particular day, allocate time to complete that task. Add a recurring appointment to remind you that the task needs to be done.
Check out my free time blocking ebook to help you organize your time more effectively.
Time Blocking Tips To Keep You Focused in Your Business
Time blocking your day works well for small business owners and solopreneurs, and it helps you see what you have done throughout the day. It also stops you from getting lost in non-urgent tasks.
Minimize notifications
Minimize notifications: Schedule your smartphone to do its email updates at exact times throughout the day when it won’t distract you, like 9:00 am, 12:00 noon, and 3:00 PM. Also, check out the Ways To Minimize Social Media Notifications post to reduce those distractions as well.
Consciously remind yourself to stay focused and avoid distractions. Taking breaks and practicing deep breathing exercises helps redirect your energy and focus, allowing you to get started again.
On your mobile device, turn off your iOS device when you want to avoid notifications or sounds that might distract you. You can access this setting under Settings> Notifications to view all the apps and turn off Allow Notifications.
Make sure your laptop has notifications turned off as well. This will really help with distractions.
Managing Client Interruptions
If you receive client calls that take up a significant amount of your time, consider informing them that you only take calls during a specific time and never after business hours. You can also use your voicemail (yes, you have one) to capture all the calls.
If your client texts you often, you can also Hide Alerts until you are ready to work on them.
For Android: try these instructions for a Google forum.
For iOS: Try these instructions for the Apple Community.
Read out loud to stay focused.
Can’t understand a concept? Read the content out loud. It helps to understand something when you use additional senses. I learned this in college, and it really helped me grasp the topic more easily and quickly.
You can also have the device read it to you, allowing you to see and hear it simultaneously, which helps keep you focused on the topic. This helps when you are learning something new, especially if it is a complex topic to grasp.
If you have Edge or Chrome, some features allow the browser to read to you. Below are the instructions on how to get to them.
Edge – Read Aloud instructions
Chrome – Hear Text Read Aloud Instructions
And, if you have Microsoft Office, you can do this in Word under the tab Review>Read Aloud at the top menu as well.
Determine your Energy Level
We are all different and can experience varying levels of productivity at other times of the day. Therefore, finding your optimal time of day is crucial to success. Split your day into 2-hour increments and examine which set of two hours you are most productive in. You may be more productive right when you wake up, or you may be more productive in the afternoon. It depends only on you and your schedule.
Visit my post talking about how to improve estimating time during your day.
How To Improve Estimating Time on Tasks in Your Business
How often do you estimate a project will take 15 minutes? Then, it actually takes an hour? These days, tasks take longer because so many distractions can and do occur while doing chores.
The power of doing a single task.
It’s best not to do multitasking for your small business. You may think you are doing more, but you’re not. Try dividing these tasks into smaller 20-minute tasks and focus on just one thing at a time. This method works well for individuals who must be laser-focused on specific topics that may require more attention than others.
Have a regular one-day off policy.
Have at least one day off from work each week. I like to make Saturdays my day off. I don’t even go into the office on that day. Instead, I run errands, take a walk, clean the house, and relax. Working on Sundays for a few hours allows for planning the new week, as well as finishing up tasks that need to be completed by Monday morning.
Schedule a day to review/recap the week.
Start your week on Sunday evening. Review your calendar for the upcoming week and assign tasks for specific times to help you complete everything more effectively. Mark all the absolutely “needs to be done” tasks in a different-colored pen so they stand out.
Also, on Sunday, write the big picture goals for the week, then assign each task. Determine what the steps are and “see” them completed in your mind. This will give you direction on how to approach the task at hand. And, as a result, you will finish faster.
Shut Down Ritual
Having a shutdown ritual before leaving for the day worked well for me. Recap what was done and what needs to be done the next day by jotting it down in a planner, which gives you a clear understanding of what you need to do the next day. Plus, it allows you to relax when you return home and be present with your family. It is a win-win for everyone.
Below is a video that gives tips on staying focused on others.
Schedule Time for personal and family.
Having time to spend with family is also key, so make sure to inform them of the specific times of the day when you can be reached and other times when you will be unavailable. Family needs to know your boundaries as well during the week. You may not always be available.
Creative Ways to Deal with Distractions, like kids, dogs, and cats in your home office
Get your free copy of Creative Ways to Deal with Distractions, like kids, dogs, and cats in your home office
Make Yourself Accountable.
Having a deadline helps many of my clients (affiliate) stay on target and achieve their goals. Using an accountability coach (like me) may be the key to keeping you focused on your business. Even doing things like Body Doubling, if you need to clear out files or get them together for your accountant, it works nicely. Even weekly check-ins with other small business owners give you the boost to stay focused.
Well, there you have it. Making time to stay focused on the task at hand will help you maintain more control over your small business. Now, it’s your turn. What are your favorite tips to help you stay focused? Is there something I’ve missed here? Please leave a comment below.
Feel free to check out my other post, which discusses how to remember tasks at work.
Please note that these are affiliate links through Amazon (affiliate). At no additional cost to you, I will earn affiliate fees if you decide to make a purchase.
Read more posts about staying focused.
It’s also important not to over-schedule yourself. Small business owners tend to get overwhelmed by. all the tasks that face them. Take a big project and separate the activities that have to be done and then attack each one in its priority order.
Very true, Jeannette. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Life as a business owner can get overwhelming so it really helps to have a few strategies to rely on when your day doesn’t go as planned or when your focus is pulled in million directions. I love #8! Confession: still working on doing this consistently. =)
My favorite tips are to stay out of your inbox. Check in 3x a day, and the first time should never be first thing in the morning (unless you KNOW there something urgent and important that has to be dealt with immediately). Another great tip: Turn off all your notifications. Yes. All of them.
I’m most guilty of now planning out the week and not taking a day off to do nothing. This is really making me re-think how I’m allocating my time. Thanks for also including the video Sabrina. It’s nice to get information from different sources.
Great tips! Reading out loud is so effective, it feeds your subconscious. Thanks Sabrina
I think we were along the same lines of thinking this week. 🙂 Getting our business in focus. These are all great tips to help us stay focused.
Awesome tips to stay focused Sabrina! I really needed to remind myself of each one 🙂 Thank you for sharing what we, as small business owners, must do to ensure that we focus on what we need to do . Working from home can be so distracting and cutting out all of those “noises” can really help!
Great post and reminder!!
Great tips in this post, Sabrina! Yes, I do many of them, yet often, by getting a bit distracted I am led to the most fascinating new ideas and pieces of info that somehow are the perfect thing for me in that moment in time. I definitely read all of my articles out loud before I finish editing them too!
These are such awesome pointers. I do a few already, and really like the Sunday night tip. Thanks!
Thanks for the tip on reading the content out loud. I will use this! I need to be more diligent about taking breaks too
Oh lordy…I thought that I was the only person who read content aloud to understand it better LOL. I don’t even know where I got that technique from.
Great tips, though I think it depends from person to person, I prefer to not work in complete silence as it gives me less inspiration and I do not miss out on focus because of that. And for me it is better to do the creative or hard tasks in the afternoon, in the morning I might as well avoid that. As far as possible I try to not work on weekends, unless strictly necessary. Good points though. 🙂
I agree. There are many options for people to stay focused. Every one of them may not work for everyone.
These are all great tips Sabrina. I especially like the idea of setting the big picture goal at the start of the week. I always try to get the most difficult jobs or the ones I’m dreading, out of the way first.
The Sunday big picture goal is a great idea. I love that. Thank you so much.
These are all excellent tips – I think I do most of them, most of the time, but seeing it all spelled out was great food for thought.
Great tips, Sabrina! It took me forever to commit to # 8–have at least one day off per week. I used to work all 7, but finally acquiesced to a day off. Funny thing–it made me much more productive!
I’ve found that setting the timer on my phone for every hour helps me focus. It’s a reminder each hour to look at what I’m doing and decide if I need to continue or do something else. It also reminds me to take a stretch break.
Breakfast is a must for me. So is Sunday planning. These are great tips.