{"id":43354,"date":"2023-10-20T15:27:57","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/is-your-to-do-list-turning-into-a-list-of-to-do-lists-maybe-its-time-to-try-a-focus-day-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:27:57","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:27:57","slug":"is-your-to-do-list-turning-into-a-list-of-to-do-lists-maybe-its-time-to-try-a-focus-day-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/is-your-to-do-list-turning-into-a-list-of-to-do-lists-maybe-its-time-to-try-a-focus-day-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Is your to-do list turning into a list of to-do lists? Maybe it&#8217;s time to try a &#8220;focus day&#8221; &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"332\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Women-student-entrepreneur-working-640x332.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Women student entrepreneur working\"><\/div>\n<p>Remember to email that client, call the supplier back, respond to that investor on LinkedIn, give your developer a ring about the site issue, chase up the invoice, prepare notes for your upcoming presentation, check your to-do-list, and yikes, that major proposal\u2019s due tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>The list can go on and on when you\u2019re an entrepreneur trying to build a great startup.<\/p>\n<p>So amid all the chaos, how does one focus on what\u2019s really important and get the most important tasks out of the way?<\/p>\n<p>Try a \u201cfocus day\u201d, says David Finkel, a former Pulitzer-prize winner and co-author of <em>Scale: Seven Proven Principles to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Back.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A &#8220;focus day&#8221; involves scheduling one day a week where you spend three to four hours on \u201cdeep, uninterrupted work\u201d, Finkel writes in <em>FastCompany<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The aim is to take yourself away from daily tasks like managing email, answering phone calls and discussions with employees, and invest energy into completing tasks that will return the greatest value to the business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemember that Focus Days aren\u2019t about being off by yourself\u2014they&#8217;re about setting aside regular chunks of time to dig into your top value-producing activities,\u201d says Finkel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat could mean sitting down to write up that key proposal you\u2019ve been procrastinating on, or scheduling a top customer visit and getting your pitch in order, or meeting with your leadership team to sketch our next quarter&#8217;s goals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For best results, Finkel recommends avoiding Mondays and Fridays so urgent issues aren\u2019t neglected; informing your team that you shouldn\u2019t be disturbed during this chunk of time; working out of the office; and scheduling these weekly sessions well in advance.<\/p>\n<p>He adds that you should avoid bringing in materials like to-do lists and connected devices that will distract you from the task you\u2019d like to focus on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;ve managed to designate a certain weekday\u2014and, after a little more practice, two weekdays\u2014where I can set aside a chunk of time to focus completely on one thing only,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll I do is work on a single project for at least half the day\u2014no emails, no phone calls, no meetings\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you have a Focus Day, every non\u2013Focus Day becomes a \u2018Push Day\u2019. Your Push Days are all the other days of the week where you just push your normal projects another step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Fo<\/em>llow StartupSmart on&nbsp;<em>Facebook,<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Twitter,&nbsp;LinkedIn&nbsp;and iTunes.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember to email that client, call the supplier back, respond to that investor on LinkedIn, give your developer a ring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43354"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}