Do you have so many ideas that it’s difficult to focus on your most important goal? How do you know which projects to prioritize?
In this training, we discuss how to focus on one big goal and prioritize your projects to maximize your time and energy.
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What Should I do First?
Last September, I was a keynote speaker at the Christian Writer’s Conference in Canada. It’s called InScribe Christian Writers Conference. As I was checking out of the hotel there were some people there from the conference and they asked me a question.
One of the ladies was like, “Shelley, it was such great information, it was so good. I just don’t know where to start. I have so much to do, what should I do first?”
It was a great question, and all the sudden this analogy popped into my head that she said was very helpful. So I thought I would share it with you.
The Perfect Analogy
It’s as if you have several children, you love them all. You surely don’t love any one of them more than the others. However, one of your children is graduating from high school. That year, you have to spend a lot more time, money, and energy helping that child prepare for graduation.
You have to prepare for a graduation party, potentially prepare for going to college, or prepare for a job, or whatever is the next phase for them. So there is a ton of time and energy spent child. Does that mean you love any of your other children less because you’re focusing on that one child during that season? Absolutely not.
But you’re helping them to succeed in that season of life. It’s a season. So in that season, there does need to be a focus on that particular child.
In the same way, sure we’re going to have a lot of different projects. We’re going to have a lot of different things going on. But I really believe there’s going to be seasons where we’re going to focus on one project more than the others.
Focus on One Thing
In my training, Plan It Day, inside Author Audience Academy, I teach this concept. I teach it in a way where I have you to choose a 90-day goal, and that is your priority for the 90 days.
Does that mean you’re not going to work on anything else during that time? Absolutely not!
Just like with your children, you’re still going to pay attention to your other children. You’re still going to clothe them, feed them, and help them do what they need to do now. But your focus is going to be on the child that is graduating.
In the same way, that time when you have several different projects going on, but there are seasons. For each 90-day period of time, I recommend that you have a focus. You have to have that one big project that you’re focusing on for that 90-days.
What I find happens in my own life as well as the authors that I coach, is if you try to focus on too many things at the same time, you’re only going to have a little impact in every area.
Whereas if you have one big focus for the 90 days, you’re going to see a huge accomplishment and achievement done in that one area. And you’re probably going to see some amazing results because you’ve chosen to focus for a season.
I have done this many times in my career, and I really believe it is one of the key reasons that I’m able to be so productive.
I recently had one of my Author Audience Academy members ask me, “Shelley, how is it you get so much done? How is it that you do so much?” And I said, “I really believe that it is because I’ve gotten good at prioritizing the things that I need to do.”
So, I already have created a podcast and a training for you, on the high impact tasks I recommend for you as an author. You can find that training at trainingauthors.com/high-impact-tasks-for-authors/. You can listen to the audio, read the transcript, or watch the video there.
I recommend that you go and watch or listen to that training, and know that a key factor to highly successful people is learning how to prioritize.
What is Your Goal? Focus on It!
What are the things that are most important for you to reach your goals?
First of all, you have to identify your goal. If your goal is to finish your book, then guess what? You’re 90-day goal probably needs to be “to finish your book”.
If your goal is to sell more books, then that could mean a wide variety of goals. There are tons of things you can do for marketing. I personally recommend starting with the Author Automation System. That’s a training and a system that I have given to you inside AuthorAudienceAcademy.com.
It’s a system I use myself, and once you have it in place, it works for you 24/7.
There are tons of things you can do. Right now, I am doing marketing. This is going to be on my podcast, my YouTube channel, and my blog. Eventually, it will go out to social media.
So, I’m reaching you with this information to let you know about AuthorAudienceAcademy.com. I would love to serve you as your author coach inside the academy. By the way, if you didn’t know yet, I have opened back up the monthly option. So come check it out and join us.
I would love to have you in the academy if it’s the right fit for you and the right season for you. But when it comes to marketing, you can do a million different things. Sometimes, you can get caught up with that bright shiny object syndrome where you’re just trying this and this and this.
What if you focused and you prioritized one aspect of your marketing for 90-days to see the results you can get? I’m not guaranteeing you’re going to get a certain result, but you won’t know until you try!
I also created a training for Author Audience Academy members all about how to prioritize. It’s really this step by step of what I have done. It was in response to my member’s question of, “How do you get so much done?”
I literally sat down and thought, “What is it that I do? How do I choose the tasks that I’m going to work on? How do I prioritize?” And I have included all of that inside a video training. It’s only about 20 minutes, but members are just loving it.
I’ve had members say, “Shelley, I needed this so much!” Or, “You created this just for me! This is so helpful!” So, if you’re an Author Audience Academy member you’ll find that training inside the Start Here module.
Cross that Finish Line
What I want you to do is to succeed. I want you to cross that finish line. Obviously, the first high impact task that I recommend is to pray. It’s in the other training that I shared with you.
Pray and ask God for what He has for you to do. Ask for those God ideas. I also have a podcast on that. It’s titled, “If You Need More Money, Consider Doing This”. It’s basically talking about praying for God ideas.
Then, prioritize and focus. Just like if you’re a parent, you’re going to focus on different children at different seasons in their lives. I want you to think about prioritizing different projects at different seasons.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re completely pushing everything aside and never coming back to it. No! You’ll be coming back to it. You may even be doing some of that even as you’re prioritizing your big project. But make your big project the majority of your time.
That’s one reason I have not been very active in my podcast this Fall. I just had way too much going on. I launched a new brand at YourCreativeAdventure.com with a brand-new membership area for all my art classes, and I was traveling and speaking quite a bit.
So, I just had to prioritize. I love sharing training. I love being on my podcast and connecting with you, but I just couldn’t do everything. Was it that I was just not ever going to come back and do podcasts again? No, absolutely not, here I am.
So, be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself and realize you can’t do everything all the time extremely well. We have to sometimes prioritize, and it’s going to be different for every single person.
If you’re in Author Audience Academy, go watch my new training, How to Prioritize. It’s in the Start Here module, and post any questions you have for that in our private Facebook group. If you’re not in Author Audience Academy, I’d love for you to join us.
You can get started for as little as $39 a month, just go to AuthorAudienceAcademy.com and you’ll get instant access to all my training, plus access to me and our community of hundreds of authors in our private Facebook group.
Enjoy this Season of Your Life
I hope you take this training to heart, and that you begin to prioritize. You will get a ton of things done, and most importantly I hope you get done what God has for you to do in this season of your life – whatever that may be.
This season may be a season to focus on family for you. Or it may be a season of self-care. It doesn’t always mean that we always have to be going, going, going, and grinding, grinding, grinding. Sometimes we need those breaks, and I’ve needed those as well, especially this year.
I hope that you enjoyed this training, and I will see you next time!
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