Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous. This is episode number 083. You are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast and I am your host, Christine Schlonski. As always, I am super pumped that you are tuning in. It is another Variety Friday, the day where I share my knowledge with you, where I give you tips, where I share resources or where answer your questions. Today I’m going to talk about focus and time management, ideas and tips. Because some of you have requested or ask, “Well, what do we do if we lose focus, if we don’t get into the zone? How can we get that momentum going?” So that is the episode today, you want to make sure that you have subscribed to Heart Sells! Podcast, that you give it a rating and a review, and for all the information included the show notes, the transcripts, and all the resources we talked about, hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com. Find the podcast tab and check it out.

Christine Schlonski [1:14]
In regards to focus, I have noticed that no one is always focusing all the time. If you’re stressing yourself out, because you feel like everybody else has so much focus and they get so much done, please relax. Putting too much pressure on you is not going to support you because it only puts pressure on you. What you need to do is moving forward. So my tip number one would be to just notice and relax.

Christine Schlonski [1:55]
Number two, don’t compare yourself. Don’t compare yourself to others, just stay in your lane and take it one step at that time. What I love to do when I lack focus, I actually love to take a break. Just sitting on my PC and trying to come up with something and forcing it, is not going to get my creative juices going. I want to make sure that I am connected, that I’m grounded. So I go out into nature, I usually take a walk, I move my body because moving my body makes me breathe on a deeper level, which helps my brain to think better.

Christine Schlonski [2:44]
Tip number three, did you drink enough water, if not drink more water. There has been a study here in Germany a while ago, where they found out that if you drink 2.3 liters of water, and it’s up to you to put it into ounces, or whatever you are using. If you drink 2.3 liter a day of pure water, I’m not talking sodas and juices or milk, it’s really water. That is where the system showed that the students and high school when they are doing their final exams have the best results because they were able to concentrate more, to focus more due to the water intake. So you want to make sure that you drink enough. I’m quite sure your body will know when you have enough water. But often not having enough oxygen and not having enough water can be really taking the focus away.

Christine Schlonski [3:58]
Then let’s actually talk about how much in love are you with a task at hand? Is it something that you really, really love to do? Or is it something that you just don’t like to do, and you can’t delegate it at this point in time? If it is a second one, you can’t just delegate it, try to come up with a different attitude towards a task. Try to make it fun for you try, to make it easy for you. Maybe you want to come up with a little game or something. There’s a really cool book written by Brian Tracy called Eat That Frog. It gets you 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time, which definitely has to do with focus.

Christine Schlonski [4:53]
It has the idea that you take the most dragging or the task that seems the most difficult and you just do that first. You get it out of the way, first thing in the morning and then it’s done. You have eaten the frog first and now you have more playtime. Another idea would to really look at your task and prioritize. What I like to do is, I like to have a look at my to do list, either the evening before I finish off my work, or right in the morning, after I’ve done my morning routine. Then picking out the things, the three most important things for the day, I really like to focus on that. Then from the three I prioritize, and not always but most of time I do and eat the frog first. I really have a look like, “What something that out of these three things that I don’t really want to do that seems too difficult or too hard or not fun enough.” Then I just go ahead and get it done. Because after I have completed it, it will just feel amazing and I’m going to be so much more excited about the whole day.

Christine Schlonski [6:25]
What you want to do is you want to really have a look at your goals. What do you try to accomplish? Often that goals that don’t really support our business, or that are not important enough, that just don’t need to be there. Maybe you also want to clean off your to-do list because the less things you have to focus on, the easier it will be to focus. I always know when I have too many things on my to do list, I get distracted. In the back of my hat, it’s the little voice is going off like, “Oh, I have to do this, I have to do this and then that needs to be done”, and then you come into that weird kind of space where you feel so pressured, even though you put it on to yourself. That’s not really supportive. Prioritize wisely, really have a look what is supporting my business or whatever the bigger goal or mission you want to achieve. What on the to do list is really supporting that so that I can focus on less things?

Christine Schlonski [7:42]
Make sure you set a time as well. So maybe you want to write a block, or you want to make clients calls. So you want to set a time early in the morning to get it out of the way. If you clients on a different time zone, obviously that might switch around but make it as soon as you can because once you get that momentum, things will become so much easier. When you had one good climb call, while you are going to be more excited about the next one to come. Then that will lead to the next one and the next one. All of a sudden you had like several calls. They were all amazing, because you felt so amazing. Put yourself a time limit of when you want to achieve something. In case you’re sitting in front of your PC and you just staring at it or you kind of get lost in Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, that you really know, “Okay, I’m going to give myself like five minutes and then I’m going to get this done, or I’m going to get it to the next task.”

Christine Schlonski [8:55]
And then really plan your breaks. That’s something that I’m still exercising on. Not very good on planning my breaks. I noticed that when I do, when I really say, “Okay, after an hour, I’m going to go for a walk or I’m just gonna chill a little bit”, or whatever it is that the quality of the focus becomes better. Maybe you want to try that as well. To really put a timer on and say, “Well, I’m going to work for 20 or 25 minutes and then I’m going to do like a five minute break, or I’m going to work for an hour and then I’m going to do a 10 minute break”, something like this so that you can really tune out of that work and then back into the work with a fresh mind. Again, for me, it always helps when I walk in nature because it gets my body moving, it gets my blood moving, it gets oxygen to my brain and often I do have really, really great ideas while being on a walk. You might have those places where you have great ideas. Make sure you tune into that space as often as you can. Because those great ideas will lead to more success potentially.

Christine Schlonski [10:22]
Also make sure that you organize yourself so that you don’t waste time in looking for files or papers or your pan or whatever. That can be a really good one because it will help you when you look for things to be distracted. It will take your focus off of the task at hand. So clean up your to-do list. Put on a timer, set a time for the task, take a really good break in between the task or after the task is done. also celebrate what you have done. When the task is done, especially if you feel it was that frog that you had first, celebrate yourself. Be proud of yourself, tune into that emotion of being proud and happy, feeling accomplished. Feeling like you’ve got something done. Whatever it is for you, get into that feeling, into that space, where you really appreciate what you’ve done, because that will really give you more energy for your next task at hand, I hope that helped. Turn your phone off, would be also another good advice, I usually have my phone on silent mode. I do miss calls. I don’t miss the alarm, though.

Christine Schlonski [11:57]
That’s my alarm for the next appointment, that’s awesome. I turn off the phone. That really, really helps. Because it does not distract you. When you work from home and I know many of us do. Make sure that you close your door, if you have children that could be coming in, you need to train them that, when the door is closed, if it’s not an emergency, then they should not be coming in. That gives you really the time that you need to focus because every time you are disturbed, your brain wanders off, and it takes quite a while to go back to the task at hand. That also helps you losing your focus instead of gaining focus. I really, really hope that this helped. If you have any questions, like if you want to know like, “Christine, how are you doing this exactly? What would you do if?”, just posted in the comments on Facebook, Heart Sells! If you want to be in an community that is really hard, centered driven entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs to be with amazing, amazing gifts, hop on over to Heart Sells with Christine Schlonski, the Facebook group and ask to join. We are always on the lookout for amazing people to network with, to be part of this group, to enjoy this group and I’m looking forward to support you there in a much deeper level. I thank you so so much for being here. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world and I’m saying bye for now.