Get More By Doing Less

I want to tell you about an entrepreneur.

She is great at so many things. Building teams, pitching investors, developing her product, strategising and ideas – she has the hustle you need for something to work.

But there’s a problem.

Because she is good at all these things, she does them all. But none of them quite well enough to get the one thing her business needs right now – rapid growth.

We are human (duh)

We all have the same 24 hours in the day. But some people seem to get so much more done

How come?

If you scratch under the surface it usually comes down to one thing.

Focus.

We are trained from a young age that results and hours are linked. If we work harder then we get more. While that isn’t untrue, it’s not completely accurate. What really counts is the relationship between time and results.

We can achieve outsized results by focusing our time on the things that really matter.

Warren Buffet owes 90% of his multi billion dollar wealth to just 10 investments.

When I was at GrabOne, there were dozens of metrics we could focus on. Traffic, visits, revenue, new members etc etc. The whole business in different ways could affect any one metric but I asked what my team could affect.

One of the key day-to-day responsibilities was email – the largest traffic source and revenue driver.

Every day if they focused on Revenue Per Email that would take care of the other metrics.

It was the one metric.

Did we get dragged away from it constantly? Yes.

Did we all focus on it every single day? No.

But as long as someone was asking themselves the question “Is what I’m doing right now going to improve RPE?” then it was usually going in the right direction.

Your area of focus doesn’t have to last forever. Business goes through cycles where it might not be fit for purpose but having a singular focus on one thing will always give you momentum.

What are you focusing on today?

If it’s moving you towards that big, hairy goal then keep doing it.

If it’s not, stop, think, and focus.