We come into work with a multitude of projects, deadlines, people and tasks competing for our attention. In order to say, “Yes” to the one thing we are going to tackle next, we need to be able to say, “No” to everything else.

Therein lies the trouble for most of us.

Not the “Yes,” but the “No.”

The difficulty arises because all the “No’s” will eventually need to become “Yes’s.”

It would be easy to say “No” to bad things, wasteful things, useless things, ineffective things, destructive things. The challenge, though, is that in order to focus on one good thing, we need to say “No” to many other good things. Things to which we eventually will need to say “Yes.”

Once we succeed in selecting the priority that will receive our undivided attention, the battle does not stop there. We find our minds continually justifying our decision to the voices of the “rejected” (i.e. postponed) options.

All this thinking and rethinking is enough to drive a person crazy.

I am one of those people who tends to rethink and over-think decisions that I’ve made. Interestingly enough, all the extra processing is not doing me any good. Instead of resulting in better decisions or timely adjustments in my decisions, the extra thinking is merely a stress-inducing and time-consuming distraction.

Focus is the skill by which we not only learn to concentrate on one thing, but learn to tune out everything else.

The ability to set other important matters aside in order to give one’s full attention to the matter at hand is no mean achievement and does not come naturally to most of us.

Helpful to me has been to remind myself that I am saying “No” to so many things in order to get to them sooner. But I will never get to them if I am battling myself all the time. Therefore I clear my desk of everything else in order to have a better chance of eventually addressing everything else.

We need to stop battling ourselves. We need to learn how to focus and push.

Try clearing your desk of everything except the one item on which you’ve decided to focus. Use the uncluttered space as a training tool to help you concentrate. One thing on your mind… one thing on the desk.

When finished pull out the next thing.

Watch as all those “No’s” transform into “Yes’s… one by one.

How do you deal with the competing voices calling for your attention? Leave a comment. Give me a call.

I’m on your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 1st, 2010 at 8:24 am and is filed under Loving Monday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.