Do you ever struggle with deciding what’s the most important thing to work on in your business? I can certainly relate. I spent the better part of 2020 trying to figure out what exactly I needed to work on.

I listened to podcast after podcast, subscribed to multiple email lists, dove into YouTube, and read tons of books. But at the end of the day I only dabbled in the ideas I heard about. I never truly executed on any of them. And those ideas I did execute on I never stuck with them long enough to see them through.

Knowing exactly what to work on in your business is crucial to growth. It allows you to not get distracted, say no to things that don’t matter, and focus on the wildly important aspects of your business.

When it comes to knowing WHAT to focus on I ask myself two questions.

Two questions for deciding what to focus on

When it comes to deciding what to work on in your business you need to ask yourself two questions. These questions will help you identify the primary thing you should be focusing on in your business, as well as what exactly you should be DOING.

The questions are:

1 What is the ONE thing that by doing it will make my business grow, and make everything else easier?

2. What is the ONE TASK I need to focus on TODAY to work towards the “ONE THING” that will help grow my business?

Let me give you an example. Let’s say 80% of your revenue comes from email marketing. Then it would be a good goal to make your ONE Thing, growing your email list. That answers question one.

In order to grow your list you might want to launch a new marketing funnel. So, the answer to question two might be, research ideas for new email funnel.

To dive a little deeper, you will want to identify every step in the path to launch the new marketing funnel. This gives you a blueprint to know exactly what tasks need your focused attention in the business.

Say no to anything that doesn’t serve your ONE thing

Identifying your one thing will help you know what to say no to. Sure, there might be certain aspects of your business that also drive revenue, but when it comes to pursuing new ideas, you will want to just say NO, and solely focus on what moves you towards accomplishing your one thing.

In today’s information era, overconsumption can be a huge problem. I’m guilty of this myself before I discovered the concept of the one thing. I also was enrolled in a business coaching program that discouraged us from chasing shinny objects. This means tuning out nearly ALL media.

It’s So easy to get shinny object syndrome and want to test out the latest and greatest thing. But resist the temptation, and just focus on the one thing that will help you right now grow your business and make everything else easier.

Closing thoughts

It’s difficult to REALLY know what we need to work on in our business. But often times all it takes is spending an hour or two in a strategic planning session with yourself and/or your business partner to identify what could have the biggest impact on the business.

Sometimes you might identify the problem, but not necessarily know how to solve it. So your next ONE thing would be to identify many possible things that COULD be done.

No matter what your one thing is, always refer back to your blueprint to identify the next task in the process. This will help you stay on task and resist chasing shinny objects. Just focus on the next ONE THING.