At the Six Figure mentors Momentum day in London this January , Jay Kubassek asked us to give him some examples of the challenges we faced in growing our businesses. For me it was and still is staying focused. I didn’t mean focus on the main objective as such but more about what to focus on to get me there – its like a sort of option paralysis.

In digital marketing there are lots of things to do. Lots of strategies to follow and each of those has various components.  Depending on your personal skill sets, existing or newly acquired, it can be tempting to try and do too much: To try and work on multiple strategies when really as the SFM recommend repeatedly, you should be concentrating on one or two and should stay focused on them.

Staying Focused Is Not Possible For The Jack Of All Trades

For me it’s sometimes a case of option paralysis: I want to be a sort of jack of all trades. I want to learn how to do those fancy graphics I see others doing, I want to write, make videos, perfect my advertising strategy and a host of other things. A lot of this stems from my background I guess where I’ve often relied on my own resourcefulness in a variety of situations.

I also have a lot of interests that can be brought to good use in the digital marketing playground. I’m a photographer; I’m quite technically minded and I love learning. But trying to use all of this, all of the time is really not good when it comes to staying focused. I am learning and am now telling myself to stop with the “Why should I pay for this when I can probably do it myself” messages to my self.

The other enemy to staying focused in the digital marketing industry is the constant bombardment of ideas and shiny new things culture that comes with the territory. I must admit I am pretty good at switching that off now though. I’ve reached the point where I am honing things down and giving myself less distraction. I don’t even open emails that offer the “best ever traffic system” or “Lead generation on autopilot” now.

Staying Focused And Managing Your Time

I’m quite lucky to have a great support network through my association with SFM and DEA. I have people I can turn to when staying focused is the problem. They have all experienced this and often have great advice.

I just watched a Stuart Ross video where he talks about this and stresses that in our industry an hour of focused work is worth ten hours of scrabbling about unproductively. Yes you might well be pleased with yourself for mastering Imovie and making a clever little video, or working out how to use Photoshop, but would it have been better or more profitable to have paid someone on Fiverr ($5) to do it for you and to have got on with something else?

There is more than enough to do by staying focused on one discipline and becoming expert at that in digital marketing. Any strategy you choose deserves your full attention so it’s very well worth taking a long hard look at how you are spending your time. It’s probably better to say to yourself – yes I could do that but It’s not really the best use of my time so I’ll get someone else to do that. Finding someone who is probably focused on doing that one thing after all if you are totally honest with yourself, will probably do it better for that reason.

When you make a to do list then, why not draw a line through the things that you don’t really need to do or can cheaply outsource. A new banner for your website is probably not worth you spending 4 hours on for example. The “Jack of all trades” saying ends with “master of none” after all. Stay focused and be the master of one (or two)