How to Make Action Your Default Mode as an Entrepreneur

Feb 20, 2019

3 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

The world is designed to distract. Focus is an act of bravery.

Phones, email, social media and chatty co-workers all pull at your attention. The distractions drain your energy, frustrate you with the lack of progress and scatter your focus until you give up for the day. Better luck tomorrow, right? Successful people work differently. They know their distractions and the hurdles they face every day, and they plan to cut the chatter so they can focus on the task in front of them. They drive through it, and only let distraction in once it is done. Action becomes their default. It can become yours with a few simple practices.

A Paper Napkin Wisdom article by Govindh Jayaraman.

Why thinking can stop you from acting

As entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time thinking. Maybe too much, because the more we think, the less we tend to act. Spend enough time thinking about something and it stops being a decision. It becomes a list of reasons not to act at all. Contemplation turns into roadblocks that keep you where you are.

The fix is to shift your attention from thinking to action.

Get physical: make a list on paper

Make a list. Do it on paper, with a pen in your hand, and leave the computer out of it. Write down something that needs to get done, then several somethings. They don't have to be huge tasks. Returning a call counts.

Writing something down by hand gives it importance in your mind. When a task is done, cross it off and go to the next one. Don't contemplate the call or project worries and emotions onto it. Make the call. Then do the next task.

Results first

Grab your pen now and write down five to ten things that need to be accomplished. Then look at the list.

You will hear that you should do the most important things first, and that's right. The catch is that the most important things are the ones that yield the greatest results. The phone call may not have felt the most pressing, but it may have had the most impact. Order your list so the highest-impact work gets done first.

Put distractions on your terms

What distracts your day the most? For many of us, it is social media. It is a productivity killer, so cut the time you spend on it. If you need it in your day, schedule it, and use it as a reward. Finish two important tasks, scroll for a set amount of time, then put the phone away. Finish two more, then take your break. Over time, raise it to three tasks before each break.

Social media isn't the real killer. Our lack of control over it is. When it happens on your terms, you choose when to be active and when to enjoy it.

None of these distractions arrived overnight. They came into your life, and you chose to let them be distractions. You can choose differently.

Small steps, big results

Action takes planning and a certain drive. You have a place you want to be and something you want to achieve, and you will never get there unless you act. A phone call won't take you from the start line to the finish line. An email won't land the contract of your dreams. Each one moves you a little closer. Everything starts with one simple step. The point is to keep going, keep your focus and add one more checkmark to the list.

How to start this week

Tomorrow morning, before you open your inbox, write five to ten tasks on paper. Put a star next to the two with the biggest impact and do those first.

Pick your biggest distraction and give it a scheduled slot as a reward after those two tasks. At the end of the week, count the checkmarks.