Are you focused?
_uacct = “UA-3096652-1″; urchinTracker();
“You must remain focused on your journey to greatness.” -Les Brown
There is so much to distract you…email, cell phones, blackberry (I am totally addicted to my crackberry), small “to do’s” etc etc etc
To be truly effective in whatever your goals are…you must stay focused on the important items such as the ultimate goal. This is much easier said than done-especially with all the small distractions around us seem to increase everyday. But, if you chase every shiny object and lose touch with the ultimate goal…you will never reach the goal.
And, we need to make sure we aren’t busy being busy! I know it sounds crazy but alot of times we get caught up in all the small things that we keep busy chasing them…not really doing any work.
A co-worker found this great blog -Pick the brain-in which the author writes a post on Important vs. Urgent…the theme is focus.
Check it out here. He also adds some great tips on how to keep yourself on track. I know I am going to start using them.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader or email.
Comments
Hey here’s something fun:
How Business Smart Are U? (4 Puzzle Quizzes Help You Determine Your Problem Solving Ability)
Try solving the puzzles below and see how much of them you could find the solutions to.
Puzzle no 1:
You have a tuber of yam, a goat and a lion to take accross a certain river that requires you must take them one after the other. If you decide to take the yam first, the lion will tear up the goat by the time you are back. If you decide to take the lion first, the goat will eat up the yam by the time you are back.
Taking the goat first seems like the best option since the lion cannot eat yam but the choice is still wrong because when you drop the goat and back, you cannot take the yam over to the goat since the goat will eat the yam up while you are returning for the lion.
The same way you also cannot take the lion over to the goat since the lion will tear the goat up while you are returning for the yam. So what do you do?
Ponder it and see if you can figure out the answer, then see below.
?
?
?
?
?
Answer:
Take the goat accross first since the lion cannot eat yam.Come back and take the lion over to the goat and take the goat back with you.Now drop the goat over to where the yam had been and take the yam over to the lion.Finally come back and take the goat again.
Puzzle no 2:
Here is a family of four trying to cross a river in a boat that could carry a total of 10 grams or less at a time.The father weighs 10, the mother 10, the son 5 and the daughter 5. If they decide to cross one after the other, no one would take the boat back to the rest so, what would they do considering the boat could carry less but not more than 10 grams at a time.
Ponder it and see if you can figure out the answer, then see below.
?
?
?
?
?
Answer:
The son and daughter 5grams each will cross first and the son returns the boat. The father 10grams now crosses and the daughter over at the other side returns the boat.The son and daughter will cross for the second time and the son returns the boat for the second time.The mother 10grams now crosses and the daughter over at the other side returns the boat for the second time too.Son and daughter will now cross for the last time.
Puzzle no 3:
A big tree grows in the middle of a deep sea and on the top of that tree are some ripe fruits and a monkey. You want some of the ripe fruits and you have some stones but the problem is that if you strike the fruits with the stones, they will fall into the sea and get carried away.If you also try swimming over so you could climb the tree, the monkey will see you as an intruder and you know what that means. So what do you do now?
Ponder it and see if you can figure out the answer, then see below.
?
?
?
?
?
Answer:
Simply throw some stones at the monkey and the money in retaliation will gladly throw some ripe fruits at you.
Puzzle no 4:
A very rich man expensively dressed was walking along the road when he stepped on a slippery object. On the way to falling down, he was able to take off the much valued suit, tie and shoes before he finally landed on his face.
Another poor hunter in the bush shot an antelope and quickly realizing he missed the target, dropped his gun, ran over and caught the antelope by hand then set it in the direction of the mistargeted bullet so the bullet could hit it.
Between those two fellow, who do you think is the fastest?
(I don’t know that there’s actually any answer to this one. I copied these off of some other website, and the “answer” to this last one was: Click a link to get the answer, and the link takes you to one of those money-making scheme websites. There was no answer to the actual puzzle given. The existence of the puzzle was never even acknowledged.)
Still focused? 
I really like Pick the Brain. The writer has lots of great posts… From finding your motivation (static or dynamic), to pulling yourself out of a slump, to choosing between love and career, to confidence, depression, meditation and relaxation. Good stuff.
LPN-Those were good…I got the boat one right…I wonder what that means…maybe I don’t want to know Thanks for sharing…I love stuff like this
You know, LPN, to be honest, I understand how truly effective people spend their time in Important/Not Urgent tasks. If you are spending the majority of your time in the Important/Urgent tasks, then you are always running against a deadline, also meaning you are not properly preparing for what’s ahead. Instead, you are always too stressed out trying to get done what absolutely has to get done now. You can’t be truly efficient or fully brilliant if that’s where most of your time is.
If you want to work hard in life yet have a steady calm about you, you must work in the Important/Not Urgent side. If a person finds herself out of harmony with that, I would guess she needs to take a deeper look into her time management and priorities. I know I have to look those things over again sometimes.
The article you’ve linked sounds like it comes straight out of Steven Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” In that book, Covey puts out a chart with an “Important/Not Important” spectrum across the top, and “Urgent/Not Urgent” down the side. You end up with 4 quadrants in the chart, and he says highly effective people spend their time mostly in the “Important/Not Urgent” quadrant. I was really surprised that it wasn’t the “Important/Urgent” quadrant, but I re-read it just to make sure. I get why it’s more effective to deal with the Important vs. the Not Important, but not so much when it comes to the Important/Urgent vs. the Important/Not Urgent. But there it is - that’s what he says the Highly Effective people he studied do.
Either way, the trick seems to be in knowing the difference between Important/Not Important. There’ll always be people with different ideas of what’s Important and what’s not, bumping heads with each other.