For some time now I’ve been trying to narrow my focus, niche down… take a few irons out of the fire. And this is what I’ve learned:
There are lots of people who are trying to do too much at one time and therefore are really doing nothing. Expert advice abounds that we need to not try to be all things for all people. Very true… yup… no question.
But there are also some of us who are excited about more than one thing. We have more than one expertise. We are not sitting in just one box with a lovely singular label.
While there are people who are just being busy and not really accomplishing anything, there are also people who can delegate, weave their projects together and become more energized by adding to their load.
For a while, I had decided that I needed to just concentrate on project A. Everything else was for later. Once I got A going, then I could add B. But yesterday, after another week or so of no real progress on A, and having some great ideas for B, and a few for C… and I think D, E, and F were also in there, I started working on those other projects. And you know what happened? I became more clear on what I wanted to do with A and had some brilliant insight into that project. I did some work on A, more than I had been able to do in a couple weeks, while it sat there and I mentally kicked myself for not accomplishing anything on it yet again.
I gave this some thought and determined that, like so many, I needed to be careful to not fall into the activity of busy-work and convince myself I am achieving great progress, when I’m not, or taking on another project that does not suit me or fill me, but at the time of inception gives me a feeling of accomplishment. However, I also need to be open to the creative brilliance that comes when allowing ideas to just flow.
There may be a fine line there, or that line might be the width of a polo field… regardless, it can be somewhat easy to blunder across.
For me, I find my creative juices flow more freely when I don’t try to narrow their focus. How about you? Would love to hear your own stories.
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