Focus Pays Off

The shock in my head was unreal when I found out yesterday that Tiger Woods not only won the U.S. Open with a recently surgically repaired knee, he won the U.S. Open with a broken leg. Yes, you read that correctly, he won perhaps the most difficult Major on one of the more difficult courses (Torrey Pines) with a broken leg. Sure he was limping most of the weekend, but he never lost his focus, his eyes glued on the prize.  There are only a handful of athletes that have this type of focus, particularly in individual sports like golf.  Off the top of my head my list of most focused athlete would look something like:

1. Tiger Woods
2. Lance Armstrong
3. Michael Jordan
4. Carl Lewis
5. Bo Jackson

We could go on and I’m sure you have your own thoughts (leave them below), but the reason that I’m thinking of this topic is that focus is such an important element of what you are doing each day. And each day it becomes more difficult, particularly for those of us in the social media world. Social media fatigue is something I’ve discussed in the past, but remaining focused on your goals, even as you have seven Twitter windows, Facebook chat, Utterz, your blog and Google Analytics all going on at the same time.

What is the best way to focus? Create and maintain your goals. They may be particular to your job or your personal blog. Write them out and stick to them, this focus will pay off with huge dividends. Some of the goals I have written down for myself personally (you don’t want to look at my work to-do list):

• Blog at least three times per week;
• Review Twitter @’s twice a day;
• Try one new social media tool per month;
• Have one live conversation about social media per day;
• Search Summize/Tweetscan once a week for people talking about topics of interest to me;
• Turn off my computer each night to have dinner with my wife and son;
• Run 15 miles each week;

The list goes on, but each day I have a focus.

–Kyle Flaherty

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