In my previous post I worte about how the 80/20 rule is fractal and how you can go narrower to identify those few things which if done consistently can produce massive benefits.

Inspite of my knowing this whole basis of producing amazing results by focusing on a few things, I still get side tracked – whether its my daily activities or my marketing plans.

While there are multiple reasons in my everyday life, its again just a few hinges which move me away dramatically from my set plan for the day and my top 3 would be

1. Suddenly called meetings by internal and external customers – which not only take up time, because there is no agenda fixed in advance they also end up you not having all the answers, but also ends up aligning one more set of meetings. If there are flare-ups as part of these meetings, then you also end up getting into meetings with your team members immediately to figure out a solution
2. Lack of sleep – this is another big one. If I don’t get at the least seven to 8 hours of sleep in the night, then my productivity and creativity levels both are at a low all through the day and which makes me sluggish in doing everything.. A double whammy in this is if I have slept late and then got up late but without my 7+ hours of sleep. Then not only am I sluggish, I am also running behind schedule on multiple things which gets me to skip through essential morning routines, which is even more counter productive. Being responsible to teams in different time zones across the world, this is a situation which occurs very often.
3. Phone calls

Identifying the issues that are derailing you is the first step. Building guard-rails is the next. For the first two I have not been able to figure out really well defined ways to solve. For the third I am becoming more successful on a daily basis. I keep my phone on vibration and don’t pick a call whose number I don’t recognise, as starters. In addition I try to get down to ding calls only after I have finished my top priorities of the day are.

Tomorrow we will look at things which sidetrack the prioritized marketing plans

I would love to hear from you if you have found ways to handle the first 2 challenges that I have listed. Pls put them in the comments below.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!