Staying Focused as an Online Entrepreneur

Hey, on today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about being more productive and staying focused. And how do we avoid following shiny object syndrome? Hey there, I just wanted to let you know in the month of July, if you do a five star rating, and a review of my podcast on Apple podcasts, and then post it in my Facebook community, I am going to be giving away several of my website, website lead audit coaching sessions. Okay, here’s what you need to do in order to be entered in the giveaway. When you do the five star rating review, screenshot it before you hit Send or submit, and then you’re going to share it in my Facebook community, the link is in my podcast description. If you’re not already a member of the community, then go ahead and join. And you’re just going to put a post with that review. You can tag me Kristin Pierce Fitch, and then put the hashtag podcast giveaway. And you will be entered into the giveaway for several of my coaching sessions. Hey there, I don’t know about you. But I have definitely been guilty of chasing shiny objects over the years. And the honest truth is often it’s when we’re frustrated in our business, maybe we’re not hitting all of our goals. Or maybe we’re in the messy middle when things are a little bit monotonous. And those shiny objects seem a lot more exciting to chase those new ideas. So on today’s episode episode, I’m going to talk about six ways that we can try to stop chasing the shiny objects and stay more focused on our business. So we can actually hit our goals and accomplish what we want to set out to accomplish your beautiful friend. Welcome to Business and breakthroughs. 

 

Do you want to optimize your online presence so you can get more traffic to grow your writing, speaking or coaching business? Are you constantly trying things online? And wondering what actually works best to grow your email list? get leads and book more opportunities? Are you looking for ideas that will help you grow your brand? I’m Kristin, an online traffic growth coach who built an online brand that reached millions of people. I’ve worked in online marketing for over 20 years. And I know how frustrating it was to work so hard and feel like I wasn’t seeing more engagement opportunities or leads until I learned to optimize my online presence. After putting the systems in place, I was able to grow an online audience to over 10 million with 38 million pageviews and grew an email list to 50k, all with one brand, I want to help you do the same. Getting traffic online doesn’t have to be so hard, I created an easy to follow online growth system in online marketing strategies that work to grow your audience and increase your traffic, grab your coffee in a notebook, and let’s grow your traffic. Alright, here we go six ways to stop chasing shiny objects and stay more focused. So I think there’s different reasons some of us fall into this trap. I think for some of us, it’s because we’re still unclear on what our real business offer is our real focus on our message and who we really are serving. Maybe we’ve recently stepped into our business. So we’re still figuring that out. But often, it’s because we pivot, before we actually let it we didn’t test it long enough to see if it would actually work. So we didn’t give enough time to actually do the work to make the effort or the the offer to stick. 

 

So the first thing, of course, is if we want to make sure we’re on the right track, we have to do market research with our ideal customers or users and see are we actually putting together have we actually created a program a plan, or a product or service that they actually want that will actually help them and that they’re willing to pay for. So that’s the first thing I would just say to you is if you’re feeling like you keep trying the next thing, you keep shifting in your business, and you’re not feeling very focused. Often this can be the first issue. So I didn’t want to bring that up. I’m going to talk about that and an entirely different different episode. But I thought it was relevant to point out here. So today though, we’re going to talk about six ways that we can try to limit or minimize chasing those new ideas, those new shiny things that get us excited, because let’s be honest, sometimes in business, the day in and day out, can seem a little bit mundane, especially when it’s not the beginning of the project, or near the end, we’re going to see the benefits of it, have it pay off. Alright, so number one is how do we stop chasing shiny objects. Keep an idea and inspiration journal, you need to have a place where you can do a brain dump when these ideas come to you. It can be a physical notebook, it could be a spreadsheet or in a project management tool, wherever you want to capture the information. 

 

The reason we do this, and I recommend brain dumping for all sorts of things, get it out of your head and onto paper or onto a you know somewhere so that you can go back and review it but you don’t have to keep trying to remember it in your brain because you need to clear that stuff out so you can actually get to work on the things that are your goals currently. And what I like to do is every 30 days just review your ID and inspect ration list, and then have another tab or page for the ones that really seem like they’re ones you’d want to consider at for a future project or future effort. Okay? That way, you have your big brain dump sheet, which can just stay, you know, to one side, and then you have your list of things that are could really be feasible ideas down the road. And that should obviously be a much smaller list. But if you do that, you’re going to find that all those shiny ideas can kind of be put aside so you can really get focused in your business. Number two, set clear, achievable goals, what, what seems to happen is a lot of us and I’ve been there with you, we pick too many priorities and goals for our business. And so everything that I’ve ever seen, that people recommend, is that we should pick three top goals for this quarter that we’re going to commit to Okay. And so what are your biggest three priorities in your business? And what are the outcomes that you want to have happen from them? The next thing about that, though, is is are you picking the right goals? Because some of us, I think, pick the wrong goals. 

 

Maybe it’s a goal that actually won’t bring in revenue for us. Or maybe it’s really not the most important goal, and we’re spending time on busy work that’s not actually helping us reach our quarter, or I’m sorry, our quarterly goals. So what can you do about that? Well, check in with other people to make sure that it makes sense, you know, you could talk to a business coach, maybe in one of your business groups. The other thing too, is sometimes, you know, when when you’re picking the goals, you have to make sure is it a realistic goal to hit in that timeframe? Do you have enough time to accomplish it? Do you have the resources you need? And then is it realistic? Is it actually going to get you what you want? Is it achievable? Alright, so that’s the second thing. Number three, use time blocking to stay focused. So if you look at your week, and then you have times blocked each day for what type of work you’re going to do to time batching, and time blocking, actually, actually, it will help you stay focused during that duration that time. Because often it’s it’s when we’re not sure what we’re supposed to focus on that we waste a lot of time thinking about, what’s the priority, what’s the priority, and then we probably do things like we jump on social media and other things like that. So the next thing is limit your distractions. If you’re if you find you’re doing everything, but work, take a 15 minute break to clear your head, take a walk, read something inspirational or listen to a podcast, and then commit to a focused 1530 minute or 45 minutes of work. 

 

Or you can really hunker down, get, do a block of work, and then reward yourself for getting the block done. You know, maybe you say, Okay, after I finish this, next 45 minutes are our tasks, then I’m going to go on a walk or I’m going, you know, to go get a snack or whatever you might want to do. But you know, just but get set, get your mind in the right place. The other thing is, you can use apps that limit help you limit your distractions. So there’s many, many distraction free apps or plugins that go with your browsers you can use but a couple are. One that’s free is called leech block in G and it’s L e c h, black in G. And you can install that extension or plugin on your browsers, I have installed it on Chrome and I’m just testing it out. Now. There’s another one called cold turkey. And that actually allows you to even do things like block work sites at night after a certain hour and then blurt block, social sites and other sites that you don’t want to be going on to during the day. There’s one called serene, in, there’s another one called freedom and blast blocks distractions on all of your devices, I believe, including your phone, that one 699 a month. And then there’s one called forest, and then Rescue Time, which actually use that it’s a time tracking app. They also have a feature as part of their product that you can block different things as well. But that isn’t ideal for you. If you find that you’re kind of squirrely, you’re kind of jumping from thing to thing that is something that you might want to consider trying. I know for me, that’s something that I’m starting to implement more of because I really do need those super distraction free timeframes. 

 

Alright, the next thing is track your big and small wins and your successes, because this helps us stay motivated. And it keeps us from being frustrated if we don’t see progress in our business in the way we want. You know, that could be revenue wins. That could be audience size. It could be your email list. I mean, there’s all sorts of things you can be tracking, just make sure that they’re the most important things for your business and where you’re at with it. Okay, next up is number. Let’s see, I think that was number five, review your progress at the end of the day and plan out the next day. So while I think you should have time blocks, and you should know what your goals are for the week, if you see what you had, what you got done today, you can see if there was anything that needed to get done that you need to move to tomorrow, okay, like, for instance, to me, I recorded two podcasts today, I wanted to get a third one done, I didn’t get it done. So that’s going on my list for tomorrow, because I’d like to knock it out. Alright, so that’s why we want to review at the end of the day. So we start off tomorrow, knowing exactly what we need to get done as our highest priorities. And then, the next thing is, oh, and I should have mentioned with limiting distractions, also, you have to limit how much and how frequently you go on social media. I should have mentioned that before. And then number six is accountability. You need to have accountability check ins. 

 

And I would say either a partner or coach, if you don’t have a team of people that you’re checking in with regularly to make sure that you’re actually one hitting your goals, or I should say, hitting your milestones for those goals. But two is, is anyone keeping you on track? Is there anyone asking those hard questions like well did, posting 16 things on social media actually help you accomplish or help you reach that milestone? You know, so in other words, are we do we have the right goals? And then are we do we need to change them? If they’re not working? And how frequently should we change them? How long do we stay the course. And so these are six things that we can do to try to stay more focused in our business and more productive. And also to stop jumping for the next new idea or feeling like we’re aimlessly getting a lot of stuff done, we’re busy, but we’re not actually hitting our goals. And so let me just review those. Again, keep an ID and inspiration journal. Set clear, achievable goals, but not more than three for each quarter. Use a time blocking, time blocking for your calendar, track your big and small wins. Review the progress at the end of the day. Limit your distractions by using software or shutting you know closing everything on your computer except what you’re working on. Or use a timer. Write for set blocks, like 30 minutes, and then you’ll know that you worked, you push through for those 30 minutes. And then have accountability check ins, make sure you’re regularly you know, coming back to see if you’re hitting your milestones and that you’re going and reaching towards your goals. 

 

And then one last bonus that I would just mention is if you’re tracking your wins and your successes, it’s important to go back regularly, you know, at least monthly and review those, you know, don’t just look at them that day that you write them down, go back and review because I think you’ll realize you’ve accomplished more than you imagined. And that feels really good to do that. And it keeps the momentum going even more than just writing them down daily or weekly. So that’s the only thing that I had mentioned to you. And you know what, share those sometimes in some of your groups, because, you know, I like to celebrate with other people and celebrate them and what they’ve accomplished. And I hopefully they like to do that with other people as well. And I just wanted to wrap up with this quick excerpt of the book, undistracted by Bob Gough. He says, What has got you distracted? What is the big ambition you’ve been trying to launch that seems to be stuck on the tarmac. I know it’s hard, much of life is hard. Get back at it. Keep showing up for yourself and the people who will benefit if you don’t quit. You are probably just a few sentences away from the next green adventure. Find a couple of people who will make themselves available to you be the kind of person who will be available to others and start pointing towards the stars once again. With all and wonder and undistracted and relentless determination. Start the countdown. The angels in heaven are itching to look at look your way and say, We have liftoff. Look at you go where will you land. So this is just a reminder, don’t let the shiny objects distract you get back to your purpose and your mission. And keep reviewing that mission to remind yourself of why you’ve stepped into what you’re doing. And get going. If today’s show got you pumped about building your online traffic so you can grow your business. Let’s celebrate. pop over and leave a review. Tell us what you loved about today’s episode or share this with another boss who’s ready to grow next level comm network with other entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, coaches and podcasters at my Facebook group to take your business to the next level. or head on over to Kristin fitch.com To find out more about my online growth system