Out of all business skills, in my opinion focus has got to be one of the most important. I’ve seen people who run amok, generating idea after idea for new websites, new businesses, new concepts. I guess its in the creative type makeup. Personally I keep a notepad beside my bed, and frequently write down the ideas that come along most nights when my brain is overactive. Some of them ideas for products, some of them for websites and some for arbitary things like the blog post you are reading!
This is great on one hand; but we all know that great ideas are nothing without action. I propose we extend this mantra further – action is nothing without focus.
Once you’ve sat down and thought about where you want to take a business, your website, or indeed your life – you should try and avoid at your peril additional distractions. Failing to maintain a focus on one thing at a time will eat time, money and overall increase the likelyhood of failure. If not, it will at least hamper your efforts in the short term whilst you try and dedicate minimal amounts of time to multiple projects.
Juggling multiple eggs at the same time, unfortunately keeps them all cold. It’s much better to keep one egg in your hands for a bit, at least until it hatches, and develops into a cute little chick that can stand on its own two feet. Then move onto the next egg. The same is true for any new website project that you launch. If you are busy trying to get traffic to multiple sites, or are running around registering multiple domain names for an idea that just popped into your head – you aren’t going to achieve much. Considering that the majority of folks starting a business do so with small numbers (i.e. Micro-companies of 1-3 people) its imperative that you reign in on your creativity, and pursue the ideas that are REALLY worth chasing. You can of course use the success of your first project, once it has been incubated to drive and springboard your second one.
I’ve been guilty of this myself in the past, and found that the rubbish ideas died because my passion waned for them, and paying the hosting bill for another year whilst they stagnated didn’t really appeal. It’s very easy to flush money down the drain by approaching things in a kneejerk way like this, and end up not really getting much done.
So if you do come up with a great idea, I find its better to write it down somewhere, and concentrate on doing one thing at a time really well. If you find yourself losing passion for whatever that is, there’s always an opportunity to dip back into the ideas book and start again.
posted:April 23, 2009 12:34 pm
I agree completely and absolutely, indeed I have been guilty of the same thing in the past. Focus is key.
Justin Parks