Comments on: You Need to Bring a Singular Focus to Everything You Do

By: Rachael Sutton

Rachael Sutton — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:45:29 +0000

Focus and being present in the task at hand – definitely that is good advice. Yet, I recall Albert Schweitzer, who was able to pursue multiple professions at the same time – successfully. I believe people can succeed or fail using either approach. While Schweitzer’s activities varied, his mission tied them together – he was serving people. His career as a musician was to fund his mission work. His pursuit of medicine was to heal the people to whom he preached. It isn’t so much doing one thing as having clearly defined goals, and being able to balance and assess priorities.

Which approach is right depends on what career or careers you pursue. Of course, in law, the ability to focus in extreme detail is critical, but in more creative professions, the second approach is much more productive. The key to success lies in determining the relevance and productive yield of the activity to the end goal. In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey diagrams the four quadrants that illustrate how to determine the priority of any activity.

By: shoumen

shoumen — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:47:45 +0000

Harrison Barnes web site is very popular for job search advice. Harrison Barnes site like a career advice web site. This web site is providing career advice to choose their expected jobs for their life.

By: Gaurav

Gaurav — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:42:38 +0000

Singular focus in one’s success in his life and career is paramount. But in today’s world, multitasking is in the vogue. This causes divided focus resulting in casual efforts and half measures in performing the tasks at hand.

By: hemal

hemal — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:21:15 +0000

ggf

By: Mehmet Turkel

Mehmet Turkel — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:28:58 +0000

Excellent article!
As a career BD person for the past 25 years, I was part of a team which took a start-up engineering firm from $3 Mil. revenues to over $300Mil. in less than 15 years.
From Day One, we focused on a given market sector at the corporate as well as individual level.
Like our staff, I too ate, slept and lived all about the sector which I was responsible for.
My boss / mentor early on had instilled the notion that “if we focus, we win!”. And we did. My joy lasted 20 wonderful years.

In my recent position as Dir.of Marketing and Business Development for a small engineering firm, I was asked to run a marketing department which I did very well. But was also asked to be a sector leader for one of the five a markets which we pursued. ( I was influential in convincing the firm to focus on selected markets) I tried to explain that it was not going to be easy since it would be hard to be “part-time” passionate on two significant roles where you have to divide your time. Needless to say, I simply could not bring the total, undivided focus while running the the marketing department.
Currently the company is caught in a cash crunch, and laying off 15% staff, including my position. Yet, I am optimistic regardless of this very challenging environment that I will have my “second wind” with another firm where I can continue my BD career while “focusing” on new growth sector- Renewable Energy-once again. Thanks for the great insights. Keep’em coming.
Mehmet Turkel