Fresh Eyes

Are you trying to improve your long-term focus in the face of a steady flow of possible distractions?

If so, begin the day with five quiet minutes.

Those five little minutes can go a long way toward helping you keep the activities of the day focused and leading you to long-term goals, instead of finding at some point you’ve inexplicably been led away from them.

In this preview of the day, look at your anticipated activities in light of your long-term vision, dreams and goals.

Ask yourself these two questions:

- What’s the main business of my work today?

- What’s the most important thing for me to do, even if it means I don’t complete anything else?

Then use the answers that emerge to help you keep your eyes on the prize of that day in the context of the dreams for your life.

Otherwise?

It’s easy to be pulled into urgencies, short-term dilemmas and would-be dramas.

And so, with your long-term vision and goals in mind, here are other things you can ask yourself, imagining a successful day, as you do:

- What can I do today that takes me closer to my vision?

- What challenges am I likely to face? Knowing what I know now, how can I most easily handle them?

- What distractions might I face, and what will I do when I encounter them?

- What opportunities might I experience, and how can I make good use of them?

- What work is on the list that I don’t want to do, but must? (Imagine yourself doing these things easily, effortlessly – just getting them done and crossing them off the list rather than carrying them around with you to continue to weight down the to-do list).

Keep your eye on the prize, and make today’s actions count toward your long-term vision.

If you don’t have one, here’s one way to create the big-picture plan you can use to frame five-minute preview of each day:

1. Know what your dream or long-term vision is, or make the time sometime soon to let it become clear.

2. Make your vision tangible. Imagine having achieved it, and notice what you see, hear, feel, think in that situation.

3. Find a symbol that represents your dream or vision. Keep that symbol around you to regularly remind you of it.

4. Set interim goals and do the work that lead you to your long-term goal.

5. Pay attention to the progress you make so that you reinforce and build on it.

6. Create rewards and give them to yourself for reaching your interim goals.

7.  Move things out, let go, to make space for new things in your life.

8. Create a simple storyboard to capture the story of your progress as it builds, helping you to see the growing flow of change.