Marketing Tips

Why It’s Difficult To Focus On Goals And Tasks

man hypertasking Why Its Difficult To Focus On Goals And Tasks In attempting to fully form my 2011 marketing plan, I have settled on a mantra for achievement: Focus and Hustle

Sounds pretty good and is easy to remember. Looks fine on a post it note, a plaque or the back of a business card. I’ve never had a problem with hustle. That’s just hard work with style points. The challenging part is focus.

In attempting to intellectualize this process, I began searching for the opposite of focus. Something more definitive than unfocused.

What became obvious, almost instantly, is that there are counterpoints to a state of being focused.

Included in the competition are

visual
auditory
mental
tasks
physical
smell (could be included for some people)

Descriptors include such words as:

Interruptions
Distractions
Conflicts
Multi-Tasking >> Hypertasking
Annoyances
Roadblocks
… add any number to your list

The conclusion for me leads to a simple, but challenging conclusion. In order to become focused, the first step is simplification and minimizing the distractions that muddy the waters.

I’ll report back… Are you experiencing any of these challenges? Care to share just one? Providing any solutions or reaching out for suggestions are both fine.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

The Rip Van Winkle effect

complex life The Rip Van Winkle effect A few years back, probably 2001, my late father lamented to me that “life was too complicated.” Back then, it seemed like a throwaway line from my aging father. Today, it looks more like a cogent observation.

I look at it in slightly different terms. It is not so much that ‘life is complicated’, but that the pace of change has reached, and surpassed, warp speed.

The simplest example that all of us can comprehend is product life cycles. Growing up, major changes in products took place about every five years. How, particularly with technology-based products, hardware is usually updated (significantly), annually. Software sees continual modifications, with major updates every six months.

Rip Van Winkle

This reality becomes challenging for people who like to study statistics and customer feedback. Both are important factors in shaping planning; however, if the study takes too long, the information becomes stale, and its value, questionable.

There are some obvious best practices that jump out at me. First, reviewing company statistics of all kinds should be done frequently, and tweaking marketing must be an going process, not a once-in-five-years event.

Otherwise, you wake up one day feeling like Rip Van Winkle and your competitors have left you for dead, at the side of the road.

Not a great prospect.

No excuses please…

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority