In my last article on the power of local business networking mastermind groups I promised to talk to you about some of the lessons learned from my local Austin, Texas business networking meet up group.

In particular one of the ladies in the group made a comment about how it was hard for her to focus because she’s working at an apartment locating service, was looking into being an insurance adjuster, and wanted to also build her blog.

Her basic problem was spending quite a bit of time doing the apartment locating and getting frustrated because she didn’t have enough time left over to build her website business…which is her asset and ultimate dream.

I’ve had this problem at many points in my life.  Because I believe it’s part of being a true entrepreneur.

I love to start projects and get very excited about certain ideas but my follow-through and attention to details has never been up to snuff.

In talking with many other entrepreneurs I believe it to be a common character flaw we have.  You’ve probably experienced this type of thing as well in your life.

I’ve studied quite a lot of Eben Pagan and Frank Kern and Clayton Makepeace salescopy materials as well as some of the other big marketing gurus.

I even took a look at Eben Pagan’s guru mastermind video blog in particular his videos about how to effectively manage yourself which is really what time management is.

Eben talks about how its not really time management so much as self-management because we all have an equal amount of time in the day but those of us who are more successful better allocate and spend our time on profitable activities.

So I decided to put some of these practices and advice into play in my own day.

Here are some of the basic things I do:

I do writing blog posts and e-mails for about an hour in the mornings

I turn off my phone ringer except from 12p-1p, and from 4p- 6p

I also keep Skype and Twirl (the Twitter desktop client application) closed except during my phone times

I write out 3 or 4 main activities I’m going to accomplish that day and then I block out an hour to two to accomplish each one of them

I’ve found myself being way more productive after cutting out the clutter, eliminating as much as possible the phone interruptions and in-person pop ins, and drastically reducing aimless web surfing and having multiple programs open.

When it’s writing time all I have open is my wordpad program and I begin to write.

Once I’m done with the article or reached my one hour of time I set aside, I save my work and move on to the next activity on my priority list which has to be accomplished for that day.

Also, I keep my e-mail closed except for right after coming back from lunch and in the evening Times.  E-mail spam and legitimate messages are proven to be one of the most distractive productivity suckers of any activity out there.

Eben talks about how if you allow yourself to be interrupted other people will interrupt you and basically run your life.

You have to take back control of your own time and disallow those interruptions.

He also says you’ll find most of the fires or crises those people were contacting you about work themselves out because they just wanted attention and to interrupt you…it wasn’t a critical need.

So I recommend putting this type of laser focus into practice in your life and business because as humans it’s proven we are very bad at multitasking.

When you focus on one thing at a time and give it your complete mental attention you get much better results and accomplish it so much faster.

Leave your comments about focus techniques and things you do which have worked very well in your life.  The techniques I’ve outlined are working very well for me and for my friends and therefore I believe they will work well for you.

I’m always open to enhancements in my routine so I look forward to hearing from you.

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