How Focusing on Fewer Projects Can Create More Impact Faster
Who else gets highly distracted online?
“I want to build a course!”
“I want to TAKE this course (that apparently will solve all of my problems)”
“I want to be on YouTube!”
“I want to write a book!”
“Maybe it’s time I launch a group program.”
“Threads! TikTok! Yes please, I need another social media platform!”
“Oooooh, maybe I should check out this new AI app to help me turn content into MORE CONTENT!”
“I need to start using a planner/ a productivity tool/ something else to help me collect and organize all of these ideas - I need this ultimate template!”
And the list goes on and on and on.
Oh - this isn’t you? You’re one of the few.
Because we get pummeled with ways to build our business, podcasts to listen to, and books to read with answers, all the programs we can take to help us make more money or have more freedom… from all corners online. It’s even worse if you, like me, consume information and have mentors who hail from different business silos. (Yes, male-dominated entrepreneurship land is actually pretty different from female-dominated entrepreneurship worlds in how the gurus talk and what strategies are all the rage).
And maybe you believe that you’re the best when you’re doing all of the things at once. How dare you get put in a box of doing just one thing!
But I think you’ll find that trying to do it all at once doesn’t actually lead to spontaneity and creativity.
I believe it actually leads to a fracturing of your attention, a fracturing of your effort, and ultimately a longer time towards impact.
Let’s get real about what time you have
Once your business gets up and running, here’s how your time can often break down:
Client Delivery or Program Creation Time: If you’re a service provider, roughly 50% of your time will be spent delivering to clients. If you’re in the creator-based business, this number might be lower in delivery but you’ll be spending a chunk of time creating programs/products - and creating all of the collateral used to market those programs like courses, challenges, marketing videos, etc.
Sales and Marketing Time: Roughly 20% of your time will be spent on sales and marketing - and even higher if you’re building your business up. Networking, sales calls, email newsletters, social media posting, hosting community events, attending other events, podcast guesting, etc.
Business Operations/Admin Time: Probably a solid 15% of your time will be spent in admin - bookkeeping, setting up automation, processing email, and scheduling. The more you can reduce this time through systems, the better.
Education: I encourage everyone to have someone they are learning from - be it a coach, community, online program, listening to podcasts, or reading - it’s important to keep current and building your skills.
Foundational Strategic Building: This always comes last because these are the tasks that don’t originate in response to other people’s requests or deliverables. This is the upstream work of building the roots of your business: strategic assets, foundational business messaging, and branding, documenting your concepts and IP, implementing your systems. I wish we’d dedicate a solid 10% of your time to these projects.
So if you’re working a full 30 hours a week on your business…
15 hours of client work
6 hours of sales and marketing time
4-5 hours of admin
1-2 hours of education
3 hours of strategic business building time every week - if you protect it
When you look at 3 hours… and compare that to the ideas list above… 3 hours split 10 ways doesn’t go very far!
Which is why focusing on fewer, better strategic commitments - and having the patience to sequence your improvement initiatives and projects - helps keep us from fracture.
Little’s Law and the Power of Focus
Both operations and nature can help illustrate the power of limiting your work in process - and making tangible progress faster.
In manufacturing, consider that you have a machine that needs to process all of the items in front of it.
It takes 2 hours to process each item… but because there are 15 items in the queue ahead of it, that item spends 30 hours at the station.
But if there were only two items ahead of it? That item would get processed in 6 hours, practically no time at all. This is Little’s Law in Operations.
And knowing that only have 2-3 hours per week on strategic tasks? That means that all 15 of those projects we want to start at the same time might linger taking up space in our brain and focus for months. We’re not likely to finish any of those projects if we’re bopping in between little progress on so many of them.
Focusing on fewer seeds to grow into stronger sprouts more quickly
We can imagine this with plants as well: imagine trying to grow 15 seeds with a fixed amount of water, nutrients, and sunshine. Those plants are competing for nutrients and attention with each other… none growing tall.
But with space and sufficient nutrients? Those projects grow faster and bear fruit more quickly.
But Jessica, aren’t you launching a YouTube/writing a book/creating courses all at the same time?
Yes I am, and I have three reasons that's possible.
One: I am not a parent nor do I have caregiving responsibilities for my own parents at this time. So I have larger chunks of time where I can focus. And I’ve been a student for my whole life - I come alive when I’m in a coffee shop studying on the weekends, from holistic nutrition to tarot to business. (This is also why I teach for free every month, because you shouldn’t have to do all the learning I do or pay five figures for "the secrets" in order to run your business sustainably).
Two: All of the projects I’m working on feed each other. The videos are all concepts I’ve written for my book and newsletter (and now want to visualize), and the courses I’m teaching are how I’m testing out my concepts and worksheets for the book! I’m not starting any of these projects cold.
Three: I’ve been deliberately operating in a sequence for a while. Before I launched the YouTube, I quiet quit on Instagram to free up my attention and cash for YouTube. Before I quiet quit Instagram, I did a brand refresh for photos and copy and finished building out my home studio - and those were projects I’d actually booked and started in 2022.
I’d been eyeing a YouTube cohort for over a year, but knew it wasn’t time yet to join the program because it needed to stay in my future plans to avoid fracturing my attention.
I’m more of a planner than most - but I’m not immune to having to titrate the projects I want to take on in order to focus.
