The Focus Formula: High Impact Without the Burnout
Practical steps to improve focus, efficiency, and well-being.
Scattered attention can lead to burnout, low impact, and even job loss. Greg McKeown gives us an interesting advice in his book Essentialism: "If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will."
Yet, many teams work with the all over the place focus of a teenager multitasking through Netflix, TikTok, and texting. Individual and team focus go hand in hand. When a team is distracted, everyone feels the strain. It's alarming that two-thirds of employees struggle to find the energy for their jobs.
When overwhelmed, I often find myself checking Slack for a quick dopamine hit. But let’s be real—busywork doesn’t equal achievement. True impact comes from tackling complex, often tedious problems. While we can't eliminate all pressures, we can manage them better by focusing on five key areas:
Better Communication
Unclear communication is a big attention drainer. Think about those interminable email threads due to the back and forth caused by poor communication. Effective communication should answer:
What’s happening?
Why does it matter?
What actions are required?
The authors of Smart Brevity recommend a straightforward approach:
Start with a strong, concise statement.
Explain the necessary information immediately.
State why it’s important.
Provide optional context for those who want to dive deeper.
Aim to communicate one key point clearly—no one has time for long-winded messages. Like great product messaging, lead with single minded statements. Use simple words and simple sentences, eliminate words that add nothing, be concise!
Better Prioritization
Effective prioritization involves:
Defining the goal.
Identifying the top three tasks to achieve it.
Determining the required resources and support.
Assigning clear responsibilities with deadlines.
Protecting the team from distractions.
Cal Newport, in Deep Work, advises focusing on fewer tasks to achieve better results. Doubling the estimated time for projects helps set realistic expectations and avoid overcommitment. I’ve learned this the hard way.
It’s like expecting to finish a Netflix series in one night—possible, but not advisable.
Better Strategies
A good strategy stands out and is clear. Instead of outworking the competition, do something unique that leverages your strengths. Your top three projects should highlight how you achieve your goals differently from competitors.
Also, ensure your strategy is easily explainable in various formats—from a single paragraph to a detailed document.
Less Red Tape
Excessive bureaucracy slows down execution, so identify bottlenecks and ways to clear them.
In my experience in product marketing, two of the major bottlenecks come from decision making and creative approvals.
Simple exercises like identifying who should be consulted and informed, what consulting means in terms of right to veto, and who has the last word on what, can provide huge clarity.
Also key to identify when do we have to get manager approval and when can we move forward without it.
Clear guidelines on when these steps are necessary help teams move forward with confidence and efficiency.
Fewer Meetings
Meetings are often unnecessary and poorly run. Tobi Lütke famously tackled meeting overload by deleting recurring meetings with more than two participants. Meetings should have a clear purpose—whether socializing, information sharing, or decision-making—and should be scheduled and conducted with intention.
Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan has proposed that in the future, AI avatars could attend meetings on our behalf, letting us spend our time more productively—or perhaps lounging on a beach.
Imagine sending your digital twin to endure the boredom while you kick back with a margarita. As amusing as it sounds, it also highlights how we might be relying too much on tech to solve problems that simpler solutions, like fewer more intentional meetings, could address more effectively.
Easy?
Not really. I’m at the moment on a personal quest to sharpen my focus and amplify my impact—without the burnout.
As Steve Jobs said, "Focus and simplicity... once you get there, you can move mountains."