I started 2016 very goal oriented.

I knew where I was going and what I needed to do to get there. I had my prioritize straight and was on my way to make this a successful  year. And then….

This “And then….” Is something a lot of entrepreneurs experience. It is also what usually separates really good and successful entrepreneurs and the busy, spread too thin, stressed out entrepreneurs. They might still be successful , but it will be against all odds.

Are you focused right now?

Losing focus can happen for a lot of reasons, but first, you need to be able to identify if you lost focus or just working really hard (which is always important)

You will notice you’ve lost focused because you’ll find yourself over-working with not correlation to your progress.

Another way to recognise you lost focus is if you find yourself saying two or more of the following sentences at least once a week:

• “I don’t have enough time”
• “I’m just trying to catch your breath”
• “Shit, I forgot about that”
• “I’m going to have to pull a whole-nighter. again”
• “Shit, I missed your email, I’m so sorry”
• “Shit, I forgot to call that guy”

You’d usually saying those sentences either feeling like an idiot (check out all the “shit” situations) or just feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.

Are you there? Great. You are out of focus.

Why I lost focus

People attribute losing focus to some cosmic event, or suddenly having too many things happening at once, when truth is that it’s just the result of making a serious of bad choices.

What makes a choice bad? Saying “yes” to things that were not aligned with your bigger goal.

Here’s a list of bad choices I’ve made in January that made me lose focus:

Hired the wrong person for a job  – And taking too long to notice and act on it.

Not looking at the my “goal sheet” to keep me on track  – Which means I didn’t progress and made the time to a lot of tasks that could have helped me move forward. For example: I’m supposed to write a book. I haven’t scheduled a writing sessions for over two weeks.

Said “Yes I’ll meet you for 30 minutes” to the wrong people – This happened way, but way too often. I chose to be “nice” over “What’s right for me”. You know what this means? I didn’t spend time with my family, canceled on friends, didn’t sleep.

Read useless articles which lead to huge time loss

Didn’t plan my week – Next day properly – This one is tricky. Because every time I didn’t fully get into it. I did it when I was too tired or didn’t have enough time to do it properly. Meaning – I didn’t align what needs to be done with my goals and sometimes ignored “real” timelines when planning.

Here’s the biggest thing about it — didn’t plan my “free” time. Which means I had blank spots in my calendar which lead to saying “yes I have time” when I actually didn’t have it.

There are tens (if not more) of reasons. But as you can see, it’s always small daily stuff that I chose wrong about.

Taking back control

I’m behind schedule.

With my own company goals, with clients, with promises I made to friends, with promises I made for my family and with my own happiness.

This past month was a killer for me. I slept 2 hours a night almost every night. I was always exhausted and stressed.

Here’s what i’m doing to take back control:

1. Setting up smart email rules so I could live out of my inbox and still be in control. I’m doing this with a few Zapier integration (I’ll share them with you soon).
2. I’m taking time to “off” to review what I’m currently doing and clearing up time wasters.
3. Setting up  a weekly “goals” review.
4. Building a better day-to-day work plan.

I’m going to eliminate  the things I don’t want to do daily or are just not productive. Through automation, through saying ‘No,’ through being more strict with my time.

I assume it’s going to take me about 3 days to really get that control I need back and then progress faster.

Are you out of focus? If so, what will you be doing to get back on track?