How To Stay Focused On The Plan At Hand
Kristyn Meyer is on a journey to make herself the best human that she can be. These posts are a reflection of that. She welcomes your support via reading and through commissioned affiliate links within her posts! To stay up to date on all of her shenanigans, please subscribe to her email list! (psst…there’s a free gift involved)
I pride myself on being an organized person.
List making and I go hand in hand.
I have labels throughout my kitchen as to where things are to go.
My children’s toys all have a designated spot, and it makes me quite heated when my spousal unit just throws them willy nilly anywhere of his choosing.
So with all of that, can you tell me why I have horrible follow through when it comes to my work organization?
Anyone, anyone?
Seriously. I have a great planner that is super helpful, which I love. A dry-erase board is at my disposal. Within the resources that I have at my fingertips are plenty of options for calendaring, reminding, and task structuring.
But yet, every attempt I make to get on a consistent routine with it all only works for about a week or two. And then it just stops.
Halts.
Crashes and burns.
The work still goes on, but it’s kind of just me doing what pops into my head during whatever time is afforded to me.
But even with the work still getting accomplished, it annoys me. I can’t help it. I love organization and predictability. The only kind of spontaneity that I like is the planned kind, which isn’t even a thing. What I want more than anything is to have routine expectations for the day, have them written out in a dedicated and devoted space, and have it be the same every day.
Honestly, the fact that I haven’t been able to master this causes me to feel bad about myself. Like I am lacking in some area. Which just makes it all even worse.
When I sit and try to figure out exactly where this emotion is coming from and why it comes up as a result of my not following a scheduled routine, it takes me back to a period in time where I had to be that way to be successful.
During that time in my life, I literally scheduled every moment of my day to be on top of my workload. If I didn’t, the possibility of everything crumbling was very high and the rest of my colleague’s work would suffer as well.
Stressful much? Yeah, definitely.
But now I am not in that position, regardless of whether my brain still wants to feel like it from time to time. I need to remember that my world now is much different from my world then.
I don’t need that to be successful now.
AND my self-worth is not dictated from the execution of my calendar routine.
That sounds so simple, right? How often in our lives do we truly need to stress over a calendar routine? But it is real, and it’s something that was part of my life for many years. So just jumping away from it is very hard to do mentally, when previously it all but determined my worth as an employee.
What I am learning now is that a slower pace doesn’t necessarily require a strict routine. When I sit and reflect on the past few months I realize that even without having that component that I thought to be so vital, I have had my best months yet. The traffic to my blog is higher, my freelance opportunities are growing, my ranking is growing. All of that has happened without being crazy disciplined!
I have taken the time to enjoy life with my kids and family, accomplish my dreams simultaneously, and do it with much less stress.
How To Stay Focused On The Plan At Hand?
Therefore, I think what it boils down to is that I have stayed focused on the plan at hand. The plan was always to be with my kids more and to grow my blog. What it was not to be was to overschedule my day to fit work into every open crevice that I could find in my schedule.
I would say that I was pretty successful at that then, right? Therefore, that should be enough to boost my self-esteem and help me to see the true value of my self-worth. I am accomplishing what I set out to do, and I am doing it well. And new jobs and careers require different things. This one does not require intricate and structured scheduling.
And for that I am truly grateful.
In the end, a detailed plan or not, my business is growing and thriving as is my family. It’s possible that I need to make a drastic change in the way that my mind works as it pertains to accomplishing tasks. Whereas before my focus was on intricate details and time blocks, now it’s on a bigger picture. And surrounding that is life, which I have the privilege of enjoying more of now. So sometimes the answer to “How To Stay Focused On The Plan At Hand” is to be flexible to your surroundings and work towards things being done when they can, even if they aren’t perfect. Because someday I will have all the time in the world to focus on every tiny detail. Right now that’s not the priority, and I need to remember that.
Enjoy your life and the moments it affords you!
Comments
I love this. I can get distracted easily, so I am always trying to stay focused. I will keep your tips in mind.
So good to have a plan. Thanks for your tips!!
This is such a wonderful blog. I am a very organized person so reading this blog really made me happy.
I need to start being more focus on more things. This is very helpful
Distraction is easy, concentration is complex. That’s why an excellent guide like this is gold!
I am definitely distracted and getbinnto a great routine and just stop. I am glad I’m not the only one and this is great advice.
I really need this in my life. Seem to get off track all the time! Thank you for sharing.
I have realized that living with tiny humans makes it very difficult to stay on task. But being flexible is a must. I can plan my day out but it will never go as planned. So, as long as I get some tasks completed I am happy with that.
I am the same way! I check my planner every day and put everything in it. I also have checklists on post-its for everything!!
Sometimes it’s hard to break out of old habits and thought patterns, but it’s amazing the differences we can see when we do.
Is so difficult to focus when you have a toddler but I am doing my best. Right now I am trying, God knows, to do block scheduling. I’m going to sit down and take some tips from this post because they are very useful.
This post is much inspiring and helpful for everyone..it is really hard to stay focused but it is much necessary..THanks for sharing the tips and ideas…
I get distracted easily so I set myself goals and rewards, just like when I was a child the task gets done and I get a reward!
I get distracted so easily and I’m the biggest procrastinator. Love the tips and thank you for sharing.
I am working on being organized right now. Thanks to this post , it’s very helpful!
There is a lot to be said about the power of flexibility! I know that I’m guilty sometimes of seeing my work and my organization in a clear black and white way – then when it doesn’t work, I’m incredibly hard on myself. It’s one of the things that I’ve really been working on as of late.
Always remember that it is important to have a positive mindset at all times. Be organized and adapt to changes.
Adult ADD? I think I might have it. I’ve been much better, but sometimes I get way too easily distracted with things. Great tips.
Having a palnner and a bullet journal has helpped me so much, with out that my mind would race non stop. It has also helpped me manage my depresion in a very creative way.
Thanks for sharing this, I think I really need to be more focus and re arrange my stuffs.
Since the lockdown it has been hard to focused on things. There are things that can come its way and gets easily disrupted.
Thank you for sharing! I needed this bad right now. Its been to stay focused while at home all day.
great tips, I also use a planner to keep everything in place and organized. It helps me maintain my to do and stay focused.
I’m terrible at staying focused! But I have a new found sense of focus after finding my dream house, just need to stay focused long enough to earn the money now!
This is something I definitely need. I get distracted so easily and often have a hard time finding focus again
Wonderful plan..Thanks for your tips!!
I also like making to-do lists, but I don’t consider myself an organized person. I just try to focus on finishing a few very important tasks everyday. The rests are what just comes up more or less.
I love this article! I often get distracted and I really need to improve my focus, thank you!
Definitely helps to plan ahead. I love that planner!
Staying focused isn’t easy, but with more determination towards being organized, gradually things will definitely fall into place. A well written article. Thank you
This is a good read. I believe I have short attention span. How I wish I could adapt your tips to my lifestyle.
This is so good as I can sometimes get distracted!
xoxo
Lovely
http://www.mynameislvoely.com
These are really great tips. Getting distracted from a plan is just so easy! What with life and all it brings! Thanks for sharing these tips to stay focused!
This is really nice! We get distracted quite easily – working on making things better 🙂
I feel like I’m a fairly focused person, but I can always use more focus! More productivity! Thanks for the tips.
These tips are spot on, distractions can make us derail easily and getting back on track needs some special routine.
Some people simply do not need a detailed plan to grow. You are doing excellent and I’m glad that someone else gets easily distracted like I do.
This is definitely useful information as my brain tends to wander at times
This is very useful to stay on track of your plans. Being able to do this will go straight to successful goal setting inlife.
hi
i could totally relate to that you were conveying in the post. I plan and start and then the graph just drops … loved reading this article , i hope it helps
me
Keeping focus on work at hand is an issue most of times. Great tips.
It’s hard to stay focus due to many distractions but your post really helps!
xoxo
Lovely
http://mynameislovely.com
I would like to think that this is a universal problem. I would love to always be perfectly focused. I try to work on it every day but have to stay diligent to do it.
Lists are my saving grace, I get distracted and waste too much time without my to-do list. Focus is important.
Gratitude is so important, just stay focused ! Really helpful
Focusing is really difficult but extremely important. I think that focus is one determinant of success.
This is a great post! I once struggled with being on top of things and this post was a great researcher. Very informative!
These are great tips! I find having a list as SO important when trying to keep organized!
The title of this post in itself speaks to my heart. Thanks for sharing such an inspiring post with me.
A lot of times I’ll want to do something but I’ll get easily destructed.
Thanks for these tips.
These are all great tips for me. I get distracted easily when I want to focused on one thing. You really did a great job on this.
I need to reuse my planner as I been neglecting recently. been so busy!
Very useful information, Thanks for sharing about stay focused
Focus is one of the hardest thing to do, with all the destructions we have around us. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Omg , I can so much relate to the overscheduling part. I used to do that and then felt guilty of not being able to follow.
Oh, these are nice tips as sometimes I got distracted easily
My motto when it comes to productivity is work smarter, not harder and in order to do that, I use the Pomodoro technique and it has truly help me out in terms of accomplishing my daily tasks.
I am also organized in other areas and also have a non-organized moments. I try to focus on one project at a time.
These are some really good tips especially as I have found that I have started to get very easily distracted and not finishing things – I really need ot work on that
Laura x
I function best when things are tidy and in their correct space, and yes, having a plan! Unfortunately, now that the kids are home full time for the foreseeable future, I’ve had to learn to let go.
I really love your suggestions and tips. I thought they are pretty creative actually thanks!
I have an issue with staying focused sometimes too, having everything written down definitely helps me stay on track.
Eyes on the prize is really one of the hardest things that a person can do. But we all need to learn how to do it.
We all have to take a step back and remember that we don’t know it all and don’t have all the answers. We are all humans in training.