It always delights me when someone quotes me back to me! At a recent meeting, a friend mentioned that her brother had attended one of my Stress Management presentations. Of course, she also mentioned that she asked him to do something and he said “No, that isn’t in my Focus Areas”! (No names are mentioned, for anonymity!)
In my Stress Management Presentations, I recommend identifying and then sticking with your Focus Areas.
The idea is to identify what is important to you, and subsequently, what is NOT important to you. And once you know what is important to you – what is a high priority for you – intentionally spend your time and energy and resources on the high priority areas of your life.
Being intentional on how we spend our resources is important when it comes to getting things done, decreasing stress and increasing feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction.
Reviewing my notes, I realize that Focus Areas come up a lot for me. For example:
- When writing an agenda for a board meeting – “What is important? What do we have to make sure to talk about?”
- EVERY WEEK when I check in with my 2 accountability partners, I report using my Focus Areas as writing prompts.
- In a recent conversation about the lingering effects of lock down and the pandemic, as in, “even when in lockdown for months in my home, I still didn’t want to work on jigsaw puzzles or knit a blanket.”
- Even in casual conversations with my son. As in “Mom, you should watch this entire YouTube series on conspiracy theories.”
- “Um, no. No, I should not.” Binge watching anything, especially something on conspiracy theories, is NOT in my Focus Areas.
What is important to you? What are your Focus Areas? If you’re unclear on what your Focus Areas are, start by checking three places: Your bank account, your calendar and your texting history. “What is important to you” is what you spend your resources on. Resources like time, money and energy.
Here’s the other side of that statement, though. Are you spending your resources on the areas of your life that you WANT to be important to you? Meaning, do you feel like building your business is important to you, but upon review of your resources, you aren’t spending a lot of energy on that endeavor? Or family or relationships or faith, etc.? As I plan my work today, I use my focus areas to determine what I DO and DO NOT want to spend my time on.
OK, so my Focus Areas are:
- Service and Faith: School Board Work, Community Work, Ministries at church including Choir, Cantoring and Baptismal Prep
- Home / Family: First thing first, my husband and sons. Then family and friends. And “Home” is the care and nurturing of home, cleaning, cooking, projects, holidays, etc.
- Personal / Wellness
- Educate Me: educational pursuits, learning new skills, reading non-fiction, learning new music.
- My Company. I have subcategories, or business specific focus areas, too. They are Coaching, Clients, Presentations, Marketing and Business Specific.
What might your Focus Areas be? Career, Family, Health, Hobbies or a specific interest, Adventures, Friends, Money, Spiritual Needs, Personal Growth, Physical Fitness, etc..
A caveat: Our Focus Areas are an internal choice. A quick way to identify what might NOT be one of your Focus Areas is any time the idea comes from outside of you and is accompanied by a Should. As in almost ALL ADVERTISING! or “Wow, you should totally get a tattoo and run off to South America if you want to live a fulfilled life like me.” Huh? Um, no, thanks.
Additionally, our Focus Areas can change and evolve over time, just like we do as humans.
Knowing what our Focus Areas are helps us to make good decisions on how to spend our resources. They also give us a rubric for deciding on how to NOT spend our resources. Even if it means we respond to a request with “No, I am not willing to do that, it is not important to me, or part of my Focus Areas”!