Focus Like a Turtle
Being a solopreneur means freedom. With no one there to judge your progress, you happen to own your time. When you own something, you own a liability too. If you own a car, you are liable for any maintenance costs. If you are working in a job, you are liable for your tasks. What happens to your time, when you own it?
When you own your time, you are liable for your productivity.
Procrastination is an addiction that can destroy everything without you realising it. It’s more dangerous than any other substance because it eats up your time.
As a solopreneur, you walk on a thin line between productivity and procrastination. Today I’m going to talk about how to develop teeny tiny habits to get yourself out of procrastination.
1. Focus of the day
“Wake up and go to your desk” is a routine that kills creativity. Instead, visualize what you are going to do today. Write down your top three priorities for today. Focus only on those.
2. Using Pomodoro timer
Do you know that you can always finish your task within the time that you plan for it? We happen to be conservative and allocate more time to tasks when we start. That’s where a timer could help you out. Work for 30 mins and see whether you can finish something in 30 mins. You don’t need to stop after 30 mins if you are in a flow. But do not get yourself doing something else other than what you started 30 minutes ago.
3. Do turtle walk not Hare jumps
Emphasizing the second point here. When you do a turtle walk, you can focus on one task: just to keep walking. It does not matter who is winning. You just keep going with a goal in mind. When you jump like a hare, you can touch almost all the tasks but you will never finish one. Do one thing at a time.
Focus like a turtle, quit jumping like a hare.
4. Stop dating(switching) multiple tabs
Do you know it almost takes 23 minutes for your brain to switch completely to a new task? Switching between tasks reduces your ability to make progress as it affects your focus. Restrain yourself from having multiple tabs on the browser.
Focus on one tab and one page
5. Stop downloading that ebook now
I know, I know. you are a writer. you are a solopreneur. You need to research and write. But how can you focus on the resource, when you give yourself multiple options? When I started my writing journey, I happened to download all the guides offered by the top writers. If you ask me, have I finished reading all of them? I would say no. I swamped myself with content when I had too little time to consume all of it.
Don’t rush into reading everything that comes your way. Maintain a digital library, a list of what to read next and reading goals. This would definitely help you learn more than you think.
6. Engage but do not get addicted
we publish our work on social media. Social Media has this invisible rule that you cannot just post content and leave. You need to engage so it can give the visibility that you want.
Every social media wants creators to stick with it for long enough so they get more people. If you are a creator, you might be used by Social Media to its own advantage. I decided to limit myself to 10 genuine comments, 2 meaningful notes a day and one newsletter a week.
A Question for you, Don’t skip, please!
I have seen many people using substack notes like Twitter and posting on and on. I do find myself engaging with people often. But again, there is a thin line between engagement and addiction. Most of the substack writers now feel that they have to spend more time on Notes so they would get visibility. I hope it’s not wrong. I feel that it kills the very idea of showing up once a week but still growing as you want. Things have changed now. What do you think about this?
