Two Tools I Use to Master Productivity, Discipline, and Focus

What if you could use 2 simple tools to master productivity, discipline, and focus? When you’re a mom, working from home, with little ones, soccer practices, mountains of laundry, and dinner to fix, being focused and productive sounds like a joke. I’m right there with you… 4 kids, a husband, a job, a business, a dog, 2 cats, lots of sports practices, carpooling, school, church, band, piano… we have crazy-busy lives. I know it’s HARD to run a business with a family.

But you know what’s harder? Wanting to build a business and create change in your life and NOT doing it. Starting a business and never getting anywhere. Or starting over every 6 months and watching other people have success while you’re stuck.

If you create a system to master productivity, discipline, and focus that works for your situation and your family, you can get the customers, partners, paycheck, team, and success your deserve.

Productivity

What is productivity? Productivity is doing the right things. We’re all busy. We could all be busy doing busy work until we died. If you want to start a business and move forward, you have to do the right things. Productivity is learning how to prioritize and pick the right activities, then getting them done.

You can improve your productivity and ability to prioritize, like a muscle. Every day keep track of what you want to accomplish and if you do the things you said were most important.

If you keep putting things on your to do list and not getting them done, they’re either not really important to you, or you need to improve your productivity. You need to practice setting aside the time, then doing what needs to be done. You’re a boss babe. Boss babes do hard things to move their businesses forward. You can do it.

Discipline

Discipline is staying on task – during a task, but also from week to week and month to month, until you finish a course of action. When you decide which task is most important, then you sit down to do it, discipline is what keeps you doing the task.

I recently decided to do a facebook live every day for 90 days. Discipline is what will keep me doing videos for 3 months, and not changing my mind after one month.

Focus

Have you seen the acronym for F.O.C.U.S? Follow One Course Until Success. Stay focused on a task until you reach a conclusion – either you get the result you wanted or you decide that tactic doesn’t work for you. Either way, you have to FINISH it in order to analyze it. If we are always starting and stopping, we don’t know if something works or we quit to early to see results. Focus keeps us from being distracted every hour, but also over weeks and months.

My Productivity and Focus Tools

Two tools I use on a daily basis to master productivity, discipline, and focus are the Mastery Journal and a timer. These go hand-in-hand with two other “tools” I use – a babysitter and time for review.

The Mastery Journal

The Mastery journal isn’t your typical journal or planner. It’s a 100-day journal that helps me get so much more done. It’s a daily plan of your morning routine, gratitude, your daily work sessions, and a review of the day. It has space to plan up to 4 work sessions for every day. There is space to review your productivity and plan the next day. Every 10 days is a page to review how you’re doing with your productivity and discipline.

Here’s how it’s laid out:

• Date
• Morning Routine + Gratitude
• Work Sessions (4)
• Session Scores (daily review)
• Goal for tomorrow

I love this journal. Instead of creating that structure myself and reminding myself to review my progress, it’s built into my days.

The Pomodoro Technique

The Mastery Journal uses the Pomodoro technique to break up your daily tasks into four work sessions where you’ll be super productive. This technique uses a timer to break down your work sessions followed by a short break. It’s a timing system for your work/break flow.

Here’s how it works. You decide how long you’re going to work on a task and how long you’ll take a break before going to the next task. It’s so simple with a timer, but you’ll be amazed how much you get done.

For example, say you’re going to do some prospecting on social media. You decide to prospect for 30 minutes, then take a 10 minute break. After your morning routine, (which might include your workout and taking the kids to school), you get to work. You set your timer for 30 minutes, then stay disciplined and focused on prospecting. When the timer is up, you set it for 10 minutes and take a break. For moms, this means doing laundry, but it gives your mind a break.

Boom! It’s done. No procrastinating. No leaving it until 9 pm. No sitting down and checking facebook.

Do you see how effective this is? If you do the timer work/break routine 4 times a day, how much you would accomplish? A ½ hour goes by so fast. Use your time to be productive and watch your business grow.

Here’s a video I did where I showed the Mastery Journal, timer & how I use them to master productivity, discipline and focus in my life.

https://www.facebook.com/karibaxterpage/videos/10155309286738524/

Two Bonus Suggestions (Necessities)

Mamas with little ones… if you need some time alone to focus, get a sitter. Trade with someone from church, hire a girl in the neighborhood, ask your family, or have an older sibling do it. When I finally did this on a regular basis – one or two days a week for a few hours – I was finally free to create things like my blog, instead of spinning my wheels trying to get things done in 10 minute chunks. A lot can be done in 10 minutes, but sometimes we need more time to focus (or nap). Whatever is on your list.

Set aside time for planning and review. Once a week, once a month, once a quarter, and once a year, review your plan and if you’re doing what needs to be done to accomplish your goals. Don’t overlook this part. It can be quick – 10 – 30 minutes – but reviewing your week and your month will show you what you’re accomplishing and what needs to be adjusted.

You don’t have to use the journal and timer that I use, but find a system where you can plan, produce, and track your productivity and progress. Keep moving forward and you will accomplish big things!

Please leave me a comment below and let me know what you use to master productivity, discipline, and focus!

Have an incredible day!

Kari