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February 23, 2021 16 mins

6 productivity tips to help you find focus in your work and hone your craft as a creative, business owner, or entrepreneur.

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Episode Transcript

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(00:08):
Oh, the creative brain.
So many ideas, andyet so little time.
Whether you're a creative whowants to hone your craft or
a business owner who wantsto beeline their way towards
success, or some blend ofthe two, gaining control over
your ability to focus, tostay engaged on a task to see
it through to the end, is aconstant challenge, but is

(00:30):
quite a worthy one to pursue.
In this episode, I'm going tobe sharing with you at my top
tips to stay productive, tofind your focus every single
day to get the job done.
And I think my very favoriteone is going to be the last
one, which is my favorite tipfor helping anyone who has
lots of ideas or anyone whogets especially distracted

(00:54):
by all the shiny objects.
Welcome back to 10 Minutesto Being Boss a bite-size
show offering up tips,tools, and tactics for
helping you do business.
I'm Emily Thompson, host ofthe Being Boss podcast and
co-author of the book BeingBoss: Take Control of Your Work
and Live Life on Your Own Terms.

(01:14):
And we are talkingproductivity today.
In particular, we're talkingabout finding your focus.
For the past 10 years, I've beenworking with creatives, helping
them do business, mostly online.
And what the really underlyingthing is that I have been
doing in those 10 years ishelping the creative brain

(01:35):
focus on the task at hand sothat goals can be achieved.
So we're going to be divinginto my top tactics that I have
created, a system basicallythat you can use throughout
your day or week to assistyou in finding, focus on what
it is that you are doing.
But before we dive in,I do want to share more

(01:55):
about our sponsor Podia.
I know that doing businessonline is the dream, but I
also know that the tech sideof doing business online
often keeps creatives oreducators from sharing their
message with the world.
And that's where Podia comesin, an all-in-one digital
storefront that allows you toeasily create and sell courses,

(02:17):
memberships, and digitaldownloads all in one place.
You can sign up for a free trialof podia at podium.com/bosses
and get 15% off for life.
That's podia.com/bosses.
Okay, let's talk about theseproductivity tips, shall we?

(02:38):
These ways in which youcan and should focus.
This is a system.
You should be usingall of these, I think.
Most of these probably willnot be new, but what I hope
that they do for you is remindyou, if you're not doing
them, and to also show youhow it is they work together
to create an environmentin which you can focus.

(03:00):
So, number one is that youhave to schedule your week.
I talk about this all the time.
I know this is not new.
I'm going to keeptalking about it until
all of you are doing it.
It is so important for you tosit down every single week and
plan what it is that you'regoing to be doing for the week.
A lot of times, one of thebiggest struggles that creatives

(03:21):
have with finding their focusis not so much focusing on the
task at hand, it's decidingwhat tasks to do next or
what is going to be the mostimpactful use of their time or
energy in the very near future.
By sitting down andscheduling your week at the
beginning of the week, youare making an entire week of

(03:43):
decisions in just one moment.
And then the rest of theweek, you can show up
and just do the work.
It is my foundationaltactic for you to be able
to find focus all week long.
I do have a free training ontime-blocking, on how it is that
I schedule my week every singleweek, and I will leave a link to

(04:06):
that in the description below.
It's being boss.club/timeand it is a must-watch if
you are interested and youshould be because I'm telling
you it's foundation numberone, if you are interested in
learning more about how it isyou can effectively schedule
out your entire week so thatit's easier for you to find

(04:28):
focus when the time comes.
My second tip is for you toprepare your body for focus.
I don't know about you,but whenever I'm hungry,
I can't do diddly squat.
Literally nothing can'taccomplish anything but
stomping, screaming, and eating.
That's a little dramatic.
I'm not quite that bad,but legit, if I'm hungry,
if I'm thirsty, if I'msleepy, if my clothes are

(04:50):
uncomfortable, I cannot focus.
So for me to show up and do mywork every single day, I have
to know that my baseline needs,my baseline body situation is as
optimal as it possibly can be.
So I make sure I eatbefore I come to work.
I make sure I haveplenty of water to drink.

(05:11):
I make sure I'm wearingclothes that are comfortable
to sit and work in all day.
I am making sure that I amwell-rested and able to focus in
every way that I possibly can.
I know it's not always optimal,but it is something that I
am prioritizing so that Ican show up and do the work.
And can I share withyou my favorite little
hydration tactic?

(05:33):
Here it is.
It's a little embarrassing.
It's not.
Look at this massivejug of water.
So David, a couple of monthsago, bought this water bottle
and I thought it was thedumbest thing I'd ever seen.
I was like, why in theworld are you buying this?
Like, this is so not usable.
Where are yougoing to take this?

(05:54):
I use it every single day now.
So I have thisjug at the office.
Um, I take it down every singlemorning and I fill it up at
the water cooler, and then Icome back upstairs and I drink
this throughout my entire day.
Actually, what is in my mug isalways just water and this beast

(06:14):
is a 64 ounce water bottle.
So at work I'mdrinking 64 ounces.
Add to that what I'mdrinking in the morning for
breakfast and what I drinkin the evening at dinner.
And I get all of my water everysingle day, and I'm not going
back and forth to the watercooler four times a day, either.
I do it once a day.
I'm not distracted bythe need for more water.

(06:35):
I have my water atmy feet at all times.
So tip number three is foryou to gather your tools
before you get started.
So this may be your water oryour snacks, but it's going
to be your paint brushes andyour paint and your paper.
It's going to be your files.
It's going to be makingsure that you have the right

(06:57):
mouse and the keyboard,and all of your things are
connected and your batteriesare full, or at least not
dead and all of the things.
Before you get started doingthe work, make sure you gather
all of your tools first.
I cook a lot and if I'm everin a rush, I will go into

(07:17):
the kitchen and just startthrowing things together.
And I'm spending myentire time running around
the kitchen, pullingingredients, putting them up.
It's all crazy.
It gets done.
But it's an unfocusedmess, the process is.
On the other hand, if I takea moment at the beginning
of cooking, gather all of myingredients, all of my pots

(07:39):
and pans and get them outand ready and then start the
process of creating, of doingthe work to do the thing, it
goes significantly faster, waymore chill, because I have the
ability to focus on the task.
Not where's the salt.
It makes all the differencein the world to first
gather your tools beforeyou start the task at hand.

(08:03):
Oh my God.
This is embarrassing.
I'm like gather all yourtools and make sure your
batteries aren't dead, andmy camera battery died.
And I'll tell you, cautionarytale here too, cause I feel like
it just killed my creativity.
No, it didn't.
I'm a boss.
I can get it backtogether really quickly.
But, legit.
I should've made sure mybatteries were not dead.

(08:23):
Let's just dive back into it.
Where were we?
I think number threewas gather your tools.
Number four then isremove distractions.
I'm totally seeing this.
It's very funny.
Okay.
Legit though.
Remove distractions.
This is going to be yourfocus-killer, obviously.

(08:44):
Having all the dinging,all the notifications, the
people, all the things.
Whenever they are distractingyou, you lose your focus in a
second, so do what you need todo to remove those distractions.
Turn off your phone,turn off your email,
shut down your Slack.
Tell people not to bugyou,.Whatever it is, whatever

(09:05):
time you've allotted foryourself, because you
scheduled at the beginning ofthe week, when you would be
sitting down doing this task,making sure everyone knows.
Or that you have removedall the distractions that
you need to get focusedwork done during that time.
Tip number five can be alittle problematic, but
you need to get over it.

(09:25):
You really do because Ifind this to be one of
the most important tacticsfor me to really stay
focused in the moment.
And that is for you to eitherset a timer or track your time.
Whenever you are setting atimer, you are pre-allotting
an amount of time that you wantto designate for this task.

(09:46):
It can be 20 minutes.
It can be 45 minutes, anhour and a half, three hours,
whatever it may be, settinga timer and working towards
focusing for that amount of timewill do amazing things for you
to hold yourself accountable,to focusing on that single
task for that amount of time.

(10:06):
A slight shift from that,and the problematic one,
is tracking your time.
A lot of creatives havesome PTSD around old jobs
or agency days, uh, wherethey had to track all of
their time, all of the time.
But it's important.
It's something that I domyself all day, every day.
I'm tracking mytime in this moment.

(10:28):
For me, it also holds meaccountable to staying focused
during that amount of time.
It's incrediblyimportant for my process.
And every boss that Ihave doing this completely
sings its praises.
It will do wonders for assistingyou in staying on track in the
a lot of time and that you wantto stay focused on your task.

(10:51):
A little sub-tip for thisis to actually do some
co-working with some friends.
This is not something I'veever been one to do myself.
However, recently therebeing both community a boss
has started hosting virtualcoworking, and I have found this
to be incredibly productive.
I'm able to sit downwith some bosses.

(11:12):
We're all really quiet, butwe are getting work done, and
we're keeping each other updatedin the chat section as to what
it is that we are working on.
And I'm a very productive personin general anyway, but I have
found that this setting, wherewe are both setting a timer,
claiming our tasks, and holdingeach other accountable to doing

(11:32):
the work has done insane thingsfor my ability to be even more
productive than I already am.
So if you haven't tried thatyet, definitely give it a go.
But if you're not doing itwith other people, I highly
recommend either setting atimer or tracking your time.
They're really similar, butthere is a little shift there
that I find makes a ton ofdifference for some creatives.

(11:56):
And finally my last tip, my veryfavorite tip, especially for
anyone who has tons of ideas,who struggles with focusing,
especially maybe a little morelong-term, because of all of
those ideas, or you suffer fromshiny object syndrome, you have
the ability to be distractedby anything and everything,
especially all of those amazingideas that come up, is for

(12:19):
you to keep an idea notebook.
So an idea notebook is actuallysomething that I came up with
a couple of years ago when mybusiness partner and I were
considering, um, a set of timewhen we would be implementing
no new ideas in our business,we needed to focus on what we
currently had going so thatwe could bring it to fruition

(12:41):
and not be distracted byall the ideas that we have.
So instead of engaging inthese new ideas, we instead
wrote them down and wrotethem down in an idea notebook.
And we found this reallyinstrumental in us feeling
like we were able to fullyengage in the things that
we were doing, but not loseany potential amazing things

(13:05):
that came up along the way.
I have continued usingthis over the years.
I have a section in mynotebook where I will flip
to and keep a long list ofall of the good ideas that I
have on this piece of paper,or really a set of papers.
In the Almanac team, where wedo crystals and make products
and source from amazing makers,we have a team idea notebook

(13:29):
where we're all able to keepall of our ideas in this
notebook so that we are ableto capture all the amazing
ideas that we have save themfor later and otherwise focus
on the things that we aretrying to get done right here.
Right now, it is instrumentalin our ability to move forward.
As a team of creatives, weare all having amazing ideas.

(13:54):
And then we sit downonce a quarter and we go
through the idea notebook.
And it's very powerful becauseit does two important things.
One, it does savethose ideas for later.
We're able to go back to thoseideas and see which ones are
going to work now, which onesmaybe we'll save for later,
which ones were maybe not thebest idea and we're not going

(14:14):
to implement them now, but italso really shows us, the entire
team, how off course we wouldget if we allowed ourselves
to go at every idea that wehave whenever we have it.
We're able to see the effectsof keeping these ideas
separate so that we can focuson what needs to be done and

(14:36):
do everything significantlymore strategically, how that
has such a positive impacton our ability to show up
and do business in the waythat we want to do business.
So there you go.
Those are my six tips.
You'll see that all of thosecan and should be done on a
weekly and daily basis foryou to be able to show up and

(14:58):
do the work, to say focusedand engaged on the task at
hand all day, every day.
And I would love tohear your tips as well.
So if you have any additionaltips or tactics, any tricks
that work really well foryou to home in and get
focused on the task at hand,please feel free to share
those in the comments below.

(15:19):
I would love to hearyour tips as well.
And thank you very much forcoming to hang out with me.
I hope you learned a thingor two, or at least maybe are
newly inspired to reimplementsome of these things in your
work in life to assist you ineither honing your craft or,
and/ or reaching your goals.

(15:41):
And until next time,do the work be boss
Here's something I can'treally quite tackle yet.
And that is, yes, I have tostay very hydrated in order
to show up and do my work.
My brain really does geta little nuts whenever I'm
not hydrated, but what doI do about having to go to
the restroom 14 times a day?

(16:02):
That is always the breakin my focus that drives
me the most insane.
So whenever someone figuresthat out in a way that's
not disturbing, please feelfree to share because having
to go to the bathroom killsmy focus every single time.
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