Another Day Slipped Away | Time to Strengthen Your Focus?

Do you end the day wondering where all your time went? You’re not alone. In a world full of distractions, improving our Focus Quotient is key to staying on track. Ready to push your management of time and attention to the next level? Dive in to learn how focused changes can make a big difference.

You start the day with the best intentions. Today will be different, you tell yourself. You’ll prepare thoroughly, keep meetings on track, and make time for genuine connection with your team. But before you know it, the day takes over. Meetings run over, unexpected calls crop up, and your to-do list only seems to grow. You’re left firing off hurried instructions to your team and hoping they’ll understand.

“They’ll get it, won’t they?” You tell yourself they know the pressure you’re under. If only they could see what’s going on outside of work, they’d realise just how challenging things are right now. You think, It’s a rough patch; it’ll get better. But deep down, you know it’s been going on longer than you expected. This isn’t just a blip, could it be the new normal?

Society once put a premium on IQ, and some still do. Then, in the ‘90s and early 2000s, EQ became the buzzword—an acknowledgement that managing emotions and connecting with others is just as crucial as intellect. But in an era where demands on our time and energy are unrelenting, and technology is specifically designed to steal our attention, there’s a new player in the game: Focus Quotient (FQ).

So, what’s FQ? In simple terms, it’s our ability to manage our focus—deliberately, consistently, and with intention. It’s all very well having brilliant ideas and high emotional intelligence, but without focus, how can we truly make progress towards what matters most?

Think about it. When we step back from the noise, we often make different choices about what’s truly valuable. But in the thick of it, the latest and loudest demands win out. So how do you develop our FQ? 

When working with people on developing FQ, we look at four key areas to assess what’s supporting or sabotaging their focus. Here’s the breakdown: 

1. Behaviours – What are you doing right now that truly supports your focus? Look closely at habits—both helpful and hindering. There may be some routines you need to break and some new ones to establish.

2. Environment – How conducive is your environment to productive focus? Are you set up to do more of what you need to and less of what you don’t? Sometimes adjusting your workspace or developing greater clarity in your objectives can make a world of difference.

3. Skills – What skills are working well, and which ones need an upgrade? Perhaps there’s a skill you haven’t paid much attention to yet could be a game changer—like improving delegation. This one comes up a lot, as it can directly impact your ability to focus on the bigger picture.

4. Time – How do you actually use your time? What’s your relationship with it? Is your time protected or constantly vulnerable to interruptions? Reflecting on these questions can reveal surprising insights. 

As we work through the above it’s then important to shift from insight to implementation. Without the implementation the insights are just more clutter distracting your focus. 

One final thing for now, it’s tempting to think focus means rigidly sticking to a plan, but that’s not the case. Life will always throw the unexpected our way. The real power of focus is in cultivating objectivity, balance, and alignment in your actions. It’s about making intentional choices rather than reacting to things as if you’re at the mercy of them. This flexibility is, in fact, a sign of a full life.

Where are your biggest blockers to focus and effectiveness? Let’s start a conversation.