The Focus List: How to boost productivity, reduce stress and be one step ahead of everyone else!

Correctly focusing in on - and prioritising - your work is key to increasing your productivity. It improves efficiency, reduces anxiety levels and keeps you one step ahead of everyone else. Plus if you’re anything like me it’s vital for not forgetting even the smallest of activities. This is where the Focus List comes in.

The Focus List is one of things you will wonder how you survived without it before.

We all keep lists from time to time right? But how many of us regularly maintain that same list on a daily basis? Is it just there to capture the important actions from time to time or do you regularly use that list to remember what we need to do the following day, or plan the following week or when you get back from a long break?

The process I use is simple, straightforward and it can help you put what looks and feels like a chaotic and stressful mess into a finely tuned schedule. All in a matter of minutes. And I'll share a template with you to get started. The Focus List is one of things you will wonder how you survived without it before.

It’s about a mindset

That’s because it’s not just about the physical list. It’s about a mindset, Getting into that mindset makes your working week that much easier to manage, less stressful and considerably less daunting. You’ll gain greater efficiency and have more time to do the things you need to do.

So let’s begin by looking at the Focus List and how to approach it.

Step #1: Adapting your mindset

The Focus List is there to serve you

Firstly let’s talk about the mindset you need to adopt. The Focus List is your bible for everything you need to do. It’s there to serve you and keep you sane. It gives you focus during the day, allowing you to work through activities in an order of your choosing; depending on deadlines and given priorities. To get the best out of the Focus List you need to make it central to your day.

This is a complete step change away from the mindset of “winging it”, or keeping partial lists, or changing your approach depending on the day of the week or evolving circumstances at work. You need to adapt by shedding the old habits and embracing the new.

Step #2: Get Everything in One Place

You are creating a virtual memory bank

The old adage: “What you put in is what you get out” is especially true for the Focus list. You are creating a virtual memory bank as you collate everything that needs doing into one place. It’s a cathartic and extremely satisfying activity that will completely change your approach to self organisation. You will be forever more keeping yourself in check.

When you start out it might just be a list of all the things you need to accomplish that you can possibly think of, but then you should extend this to requests you receive via email, over chat or messenger, after every meeting, as well as verbally. Don’t rely on your memory. The Focus List is there to act as an extension to your brain. Once added, you can relax in the knowledge it’s safe, and will be done at the appropriate time, leaving you to focus on something else.

Step #3: Prioritise and enforce deadlines

Sort and filter your Focus List to identify which activities you need to be getting on with now

What would activities be without a priority or a deadline? You need to enforce one on every item because it provides much needed clarity and importance. Once you have these to your liking you can then sort the Focus List to see which activities you need to begin first. If it doesn't look right you can make changes and sort them again until you’re completely satisfied. 

Some activities may require multiple actions over the course of a few days or weeks. Once you have completed the first action you can adjust the deadline day and priority to when you need to pick this up again. Or close them and create new activities, it's totally in your control.

So now you can sort and filter your Focus List to see which activities you need to be getting on with immediately and which ones can wait till later. This will pinpoint the priorities in your working day and give you much greater focus as you work.

Step #4: Give each activity a status

See at a glance what you have going on right now

Alongside priorities and deadlines you will need to assign a simple status to each activity. This helps to see at a glance what you have going on right now and what new activities have come in that you need to start on. 

Furthermore, there’s no need to delete the activities you have completed, instead mark them as completed and hide them (more on the practical side of this later). That way you have a record of everything you have done in one place. You can use it as a reference point and feel good about what you have achieved. 

By giving each activity a status you’re reminding yourself what you are working on right now, what you have done, and what you have left still to do. 

Step #5: Keep it going!

Keep the Focus List at the forefront of what you

The final and most important rule is to keep the Focus List at the forefront of what you do every day. Keep it as an open document, or tab, on your laptop or PC, Refer back to it when something new comes in. You don’t need to fill in all the details right away but the key is to catch it and forget about it until you need to refer back to it. It’s not arduous. You can adapt it as you see fit, but it needs to be the key activity you undertake each and every day.

I have a great interest and fascination in introducing new routines and developing new skills. As someone who lives and breathes this way of working I can honestly say it does take a shift in mindset but once up and running it will become second nature. I’ve also seen first hand the benefits of the Focus List. Let’s look at a few of them here:

Benefit #1: Reduced anxiety

No late night niggles or cold sweats

The greatest benefit of maintaining your own Focus List is the overall reduction of anxiety and stress. Why? Because by organising everything you need into a structured way you are able to have a clear head. No late night niggles or cold sweats realising you’ve missed something important from a request you received during the day. Everything is captured in your Focus List, organised so as to be done at a time and in an order of your choosing. It gives you the control you need to get a better handle on your work and reduce stress.

Benefit #2: Efficiency and time saving

You don’t need to waste time remembering everything

By capturing and managing activities in your own Focus List you are able to save a considerable amount of time during your working day to focus on the actual “doing”. 

Being in control of what you need to do means you won’t waste time remembering everything you’ve agreed to do, or jump around between activities or requests from work colleagues as they come in. Juggling multiple things at one time might feel like mutli-tasking but in reality all you’re doing is “switch tasking” which has been shown as an inefficient way of working.

Benefit #3: A sense of ownership

You are in control of your time

One of the greatest benefits of the Focus List is having that real sense of ownership and accountability of your workload. You are in control of your time and how you spend it. It provides a certain level of autonomy over your working day, with decision making that is truly your own. By creating structure and rigor you are taking control of your time and getting as much out of it as possible. You will find it more enjoyable and rewarding too. 

Benefit #4 Always be dependable

You will be seen as the person who gets the job done

By developing that sense of ownership and accountability you will become far more dependable to work colleagues. You will be seen as the person who gets the job done, who rarely forgets. And when a colleague does contact you to ask how a certain activity is getting along you can respond with confidence: either it’s being done right now or it’s planned to be done at the right time.

Benefit #5: Always be one step ahead!

You achieve this by staying organised, in control and constantly in check with your Focus List.

Let’s tie all these benefits together: By creating and regularly maintaining your Focus List you will reduce stress, save time and create a larger degree of ownership and autonomy over your working day. By establishing and maintaining this regime you will soon be recognised as a consistently dependable part of the team and you will not only be one step ahead of yourself but ahead of your work colleagues too. You achieve this by staying organised, in control and constantly in check with your Focus List.

Getting Started with the Focus List

Now we’ve looked at the rules around the Focus List and some of its benefits, let's now look at how to get started with one. 

I use a spreadsheet as my Focus List and I have created an example above that you are free to use and adapt. The great thing about a spreadsheet is the ability to sort and filter your activities as well as using conditional formatting to pinpoint the work needing attention first. 

The Focus List comprises 5 columns. Let’s look at them briefly here:

• Date Added - The date you add the activity to the tracker
• Activity - A brief description of the activity in question
• Next update - The date you next need to work on this activity
• Priority - The importance of the activity (note that you may for example have different priorities spanning a single day or week)
• Status - There are a total of three: Not Started, In Progress and Completed. This allows you to see the new activities from the existing, and you can archive the completed ones using the filter.

Feel free to download it and use it as you see fit by clicking on File > Download and selecting the format of your choice:

Conclusion

So there you have it, the Focus List, an easy to use but highly productive tool that will help become more efficient and effective in your job role. It will reduce stress, help you to remember everything you need to do, and make you more dependable. 

What other methods do you use to keep track of your daily activities? Is this something that you would find useful? Is there anything missing here that would enable you to become more effective at organising your working day? Use the comments below to discuss!