I feel like there’s something about, Focus February. And I have to explain:

In Finish Line Friday, my free virtual productivity session every Friday, with my community that we’ve created in Finish Line Friday – I love my community that we’ve created – one of my participants, a fellow organizer here in the Chicago area, always uses alliteration when she states her intentions for how she plans to use Finish Line Friday. For example, It’s Finance Friday (bookkeeping and bill paying) and Fashion Friday (putting away laundry and packing for a trip).

So as I was thinking as I wrote today’s content, perhaps it is Focus February. Or not. It’s a little corny. But we’ll see where my writing and content calendar take me. The current plan is two upcoming episodes about focus, another about finances and one about medical follow up, so perhaps the Fs will work!

And now to today’s topic:

A company asked me to present a professional development session in February. When I asked about the topic they were looking for, the questions the coordinators asked were all about focus.

I know the participants and their industry, too, so I can write about focus and in the context of working remotely as they are all remote workers. Specifically, the topics are:

• Make the best use of their time;
• Helping the team remain on task, and
• How to Stay Focused.

Excellent, yes, I can write a presentation for that, sounds great! And, then I thought those ideas also sound like great podcast episodes and articles, like for today and next week!

“How To Make The Best Use Of Their Time”.

Stepping to the side here, last week, I took you to college with me with a revisit from Intro to Psychology. This week, you’re going back in time with me to Productions and Operations Management, Junior year of college. It may not sound exciting, but it was one of my favorite Management classes and the content has certainly stuck with me.

This is a great question. An important question. A really big picture question, in business. But we need to lay a foundation before we can answer this question. First, we need to define “Best”, as in “of the most excellent, effective, or desirable type or quality” (thank you, Google!).

In Productions and Operations Management, we talked about the difference between an efficient use of resources and an effective use of resources.

Efficiency is the LEAST outlay of resources like time, money, manpower and materials. Here, cheapest and quickest win the day. But that may not yield good results.

Effectiveness, on the other hand, is the BEST outlay of resources like time, money, manpower or materials. By using more resources, we can achieve the “the most excellent, effective, or desirable type or quality”.

In class, we looked at “efficient” versus “effective” in the auto industry. Cars could be cheaply and quickly made but they might not have been very good or reliable cars. Spending more time and money and labor yielded higher quality, more reliable and more desirable cars. That is where we’re coming from today.

As we determine the “Best” use of the participant’s time, we are going to look at effectiveness. How to choose the best combination of our resources. And in the workplace, and specifically for this company’s professional development, we want to encourage the Best. The Best use of our time means maybe we use a few more resources, like time and manpower, but choosing the Best use will have the biggest impact, the most positive impact on what we’re trying to achieve.

And to further define “Best”, we need to know what is important to those participants and the company. Because, here’s the thing, “Best” is a subjective statement. Meaning, it is very personal and individual to each participant, and to each of us, by extension. The “Best” use of my time will look different from everyone else.

Recalling that this is for a business specific professional development, “Best” in this case probably means productive, but also being productive with the right things, the best things. A coaching client in a recent session called them the Needle Movers – imagine your speedometer in your car. A lot of car references today! If you had a progress meter on your project task list, the Needle movers would move you closer to DONE! The needle movers, the change makers.

For all of us, then, to make the Best use of our time in the work place, we need to know what is important to move us towards our goals and desired outcomes, and get those important and needle-moving tasks done.

Which brings me to Focus Areas. As we determine our “Best”, we need to know our Focus Areas. What are yours? In your whole like, but also in your work life?

I’ve talked about Focus Areas in past podcast episodes and articles. But I would like to re-visit them for today’s article and podcast. Because we have to know our Focus areas to know we’re making the “Best” use of our time.

And I will use me as an example, because then I don’t have to ask for permission. In Life, my focus areas are Business, Home / Personal, Wellness, and Service like Board of Education Work and Ministry.

In my business, my Focus Areas are: Speaking and Teaching; Coaching Clients; Organizing Clients; Content like my podcast, newsletter, articles, website and social media; Education, like attending webinars and conferences for my Continuing Education Units; and the business of my business like bookkeeping, scheduling, etc.

So, as I decide how to spend my days, I keep those focus areas in mind. When tasks come up, or requests for my time, I filter those requests through that list of focus areas and decide where the request belongs or if I just need to say, No, Thank You.

My To-Do List is quite lengthy. Daily routine tasks, weekly tasks. And those aren’t even the actual work that I go and do with clients or students or with Board of Education work or with Ministry. The To-Do List is longer than I can ever accomplish in a day, so I have to narrow my options, zoom in and focus on what needs to happen just today to move that needle.

Because another challenge of course, in determining the “Best Use of Our Time” is that time is a limited resource. We only have so many hours in a day dedicated to work. And that is as it should be. We are more than just drones. But with time as a limited resource, we must use it wisely. We have to be a little choosy.

How do we do that? How do we choose? How do we choose the best use of our time today?

• (If needed) What are my goals? Intentions?
• What Focus Areas are we focusing on today?
• What hours are available to me today?
• When are my peak productive hours? Early in the day, mid day, evening, late evening?
• What tasks or projects on today’s list are time-sensitive?
• What tasks are other people relying on you to complete, so they can complete their work?
• What can only I do? And subsequently, what can I delegate to others?

All of these are effectiveness questions. Not once did I ask, how do I do this the quickest, the easiest, the cheapest, etc.

Most days, I choose 3 or 4 Must Do tasks for today, from the lengthy to-do list. Truly, I try to choose my 3 or 4 the night before, for the next day. Some may be routine or urgent, and time specific, but almost every day I spend a little time on a longer, bigger, more strategic project, too. That is the BEST use of my time, working on the needle movers, the change makers.

For example, I was working on a project today and… well… I really didn’t want to do it. It was rather tedious, my attention was pulled in many different directions. I could easily have abandoned that project for something, well – anything else, really. But, looking at that list of questions:

Today’s project is attached to the larger project of relaunching my website, which is a goal. We have a time sensitive deadline. I have already delegated most of the work to my assistant who is awesome, but this project required me to make decisions that only I could make about content that needs to move from the old website to the new one. And we can’t relaunch until I complete this project. And while it was tedious, it didn’t actually take that long to complete. So I did it. It was the Best use of my time. It required time and attention and energy as resources, but it was a Needle Moving activity and now it’s complete.

As I wrap this up, because writing a longer article is not the Best use of my time today, and reading or listening to a longer article isn’t the Best use of yours, either, I want to share three caveats to making The Best Use Of Our Time, and they are:

1. There can be more than one Best Use of our time. So we don’t have to get stuck on finding the perfect use of our time, just the Best. A Best.
2. Some days we just need to act. We will talk about Focus next week, but there are some things we have to do that, going back to last week’s article, are just about survival and maintenance. But once those are accomplished, we can look to making progress, at the BEST use.
3. Not everything can be your favorite. We can talk about Effectiveness and Focus Areas, etc., but we cannot feasibly focus on all the things every day, because then, really, we aren’t focusing on anything.

So on days when there are far too many tasks on the to-do list and far too many demands on our time, take a few minutes to ask yourselves the questions. When we seek the Best Use of our time, let’s look at the workday and determine “what is the most important thing that I get done today to continue to move forward?” I think that’s the most powerful question. Um, what are the two or three things. What are the two or three things that I can feasibly expect to accomplish, um, that will continue to move me forward?

To ensure we make the best use of our time, let’s focus on what is important to us and the tasks that we need to complete to tend to and achieve those important things!