The Magic Of Focusing On One Thing At A Time

Hands up if you’ve spent weeks, months and years feeling overwhelmed? (Yes you can have both). To-do-lists pile up our papers and our minds. We’re constantly zooming between the to do’s and the been done. It’s no wonder, even when we tick things off, we still don’t feel like we’ve done anything.

Then – something interest happened to me recently. I stopped. I stopped writing to do’s. I stopped focusing on everything that had to be done. And instead, I choose to focus on one thing at a time.

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What happens when you focus on one thing at a time

I set myself 3 month goals (a complete game changer). That was it. 3 simple goals that I wanted to achieve in the next 90 days. I wrote things I needed to do to get there.

For example, one goal was to grow our website to 1,000 readers on the mailing list. To achieve that? I needed to get on Pinterest and pin good content. So every Monday, all I do is content. I focus on what to write, I research and I create Pinterest pins for it. 

That’s Monday. And when I finish, that’s content done for the week. I don’t spend anymore time on it.

If I have any more ideas on content or anything that comes to mind, I write it down and I look it at the next Monday.

What’s happened?

For the first time in months I’m finally seeing some results with my writing.

Here’s a snap shot of our Pinterest profile analytics for the past 7-14 days

We’re now almost seeing consistent growth in our profile and reach.

Because when I’m all over the place and stressed and not focused, in shows in my writings and in my clicks (or lack there of).

But spending time focusing on one thing at a time has really paid off.

I haven’t worked any more or any harder. In fact I’ve actually worked less and just been smart about things.

How to decide what to focus on & what to do after that

See what other people are doing and how they are getting results

And this is why we go back to the to do lists! We know what we have to do, but knowing what we should be focusing on can welcome back the overwhelm!

The best advice I got was to focus on what was working for me right now.

Maybe for you, it’s Facebook. But the hype of Pinterest has you thinking you should be there.

But until you have the time or resources to get into Pinterest without leaving Facebook behind. Just focus on Facebook. It’s working for you, so why not?

If you’re knew like us, do a bit of research. Join some Facebook groups relevant to your product/niche and see what other people are doing.

After joining heaps of Facebook groups I knew the people who were writing and creating websites with content were getting results from Pinterest. So I only focus on Pinterest. No Facebook, no Instagram.

To get results on Pinterest I needed great content and great pins.

Once you’ve decided on what you’re going to focus on, decide on the tasks that need to be done to get there

I knew nothing about Pinterest or content. And I’m still learning. But I knew in order to see results and not waste time with trial and error (especially when others have already done it) I need to invest in some good resources first. I wanted to learn first and then implement what I’d learn to get moving.

Here’s the’s resources I choose

Pinterest

I invested in a two of the most affordable and most recommended resources from the Facebook groups I was in

• Pinteresting Strategies by Carly
• Pinning Perfect by Blog Clarity

Content

I bought two e-books by people that have had great success with content marketing

• Content Machine by Dan Norris
• Content Inc. by Joe Pulizzi

Once I felt I’d learnt enough and was ready to implement I did! I wrote and referred back to what I’d learnt.

I set myself a target of having 15 articles to put on Pinterest and once I did that, I focused on adding just one a week.

With Pinterest, I knew the course would take time so I set time every day (expect Monday) to watch and work through them.

Prioritize it

Sure I could start focusing on Pinterest straight away, but if I didn’t have content, it was no use.

So it became Mondays were for Content & Tuesdays where for Pinterest.

I spent every Monday reading and writing. That needed to be done first.

Then every Tuesday was learning about Pinterest and getting the exercises done.

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Related posts about productivity and focus:

• 1 Simple Time Management Trick To Stay Focused
• 3 Steps To Control Negative Self Talk As An Entrepreneur
• The Power Of A 90 Day Year
• 3 Reasons You Need To Stop Mulitasking To Be More Productive

Choose your time frame

Focusing on one thing at a time on one thing can be done many times in a day.

It’s up to you to see what works.

For me, I split my days by theme. With a maximum of two themes a day.

Content takes me at least have a day by the time I research, write and do my pins for it.

But maybe you might have 3 themes a day. And that will decide what your 3 main focuses are.

Wednesdays is my website day. I know that will take all day. So Wednesday are for tweaking things, adding listings. That’s all I focus on.

So it might be an all day thing. It’s up to you.

So long as you know that it what you’re focusing on and you don’t jump in between. Or give yourself 50 themes in a day (I’d say any more than 3 defeats the purpose of this).

So that’s all I have done to see some great results that I’m really happy with. I feel less overwhelmed and more in control by simply deciding to focus on one thing at a time and sticking to it.

How about you? How do you decide what to focus on? How do you split your week? We’d love to hear!