Tell me if this sounds familiar. You sit down at your desk, ready to work on your business. You have a bunch of things you can (and should) work on. But you end up spending the first twenty minutes (if not a lot longer) trying to figure out which thing you should actually work on first.
I can’t tell you how often this has been me.
First I’ll think that I should work on getting more traffic. Then I’ll remember that I also have a product I want to finish. I haven’t posted on social media lately, so maybe I should do that instead. But oh wait, there’s an email I need to write. I also want to update that sales page. And wasn’t there something I wanted to do with Pinterest?
None of those are necessarily bad ideas. In fact, you need to do most of them eventually. That’s actually part of the problem.
When there are several things I could be working on, it can be surprisingly hard to decide which one deserves my attention first.
To make it worse, sometimes I’ll choose something and start working on it. A few minutes later I’ll start to wonder whether I should be working on something else instead.
And it turns out that all of that uncertainty has a cost.
It’s not just taking up time. It’s making my business feel more complicated than it needs to be.
Because there’s a huge difference between sitting down at my computer thinking, What should I work on today? and sitting down already knowing, This is what I’m working on, and this is why it matters.
Clarity creates calm.
Sometimes the Problem Isn’t That You Don’t Know What to Do
There certainly have been times in my business when I genuinely didn’t know what to do next.
But more often, I think I have the opposite problem.
I know too many things I could do.
There is never a shortage of advice telling us what we should be doing to grow an online business. We could create more products, send more emails, improve our sales pages, post more often, start a YouTube channel, work on SEO, grow our email lists, create funnels, learn paid advertising, or try whatever strategy everyone seems to be talking about this month.
And the frustrating thing is that many of those things really could help.
But I can’t do all of them at the same time.
When everything feels potentially important, it’s easy for me to bounce between projects or choose whatever seems easiest to start. I can stay busy all day without ever feeling completely sure that I’m spending my limited time on the thing that will make the biggest difference.
So maybe the problem isn’t always that we need another idea.
Sometimes we need enough clarity to choose between the ideas we already have.
Every Open Decision Takes Up Space
You’ve probably heard that when you have too many things on your mind, you can do a “brain dump” to help clear your head. But you may not have noticed that unfinished decisions take up a lot of space as well.
If I haven’t decided what my priority is, the decision doesn’t disappear just because I start working.
It follows me around.
I can be writing an email and suddenly think, Maybe I should really be working on that product instead. That way I’ll have another product to sell sooner.
Then, later I’ll be working on the product and remember that I haven’t done anything to bring new people into my business lately. So maybe I should be working on getting more traffic instead.
Then I start thinking about traffic and remember the Pinterest idea I wanted to try.
Nothing is necessarily wrong with any of those thoughts. But I’m making and remaking the same decision all day long: What should I be working on right now?
It’s exhausting.
And worse, every time I reconsider the decision, I give myself another opportunity to abandon what I’m already doing.
I’ve been realizing that sometimes the calm I’m looking for in my business doesn’t come from having less to do.
It comes from deciding what I’m doing and letting the other things wait.
Being Busy Isn’t the Same as Knowing What Matters
This is where I think things can get especially tricky.
I can have a very productive day and still not make much progress on the thing my business actually needs. I don’t even want to think about all of the days where I was very productive…I really did a lot! And when the day was over, none of it really helped my bottom line.
There are always useful things I can do. I can update something on my website, create a graphic, research a new tool, clean up a document, or make a list for a future project.
At the end of the day, I can point to everything I accomplished and legitimately say I worked.
But did I work on the thing that was most likely to move my business forward?
That’s a different question.
This connects to something I’ve been thinking about over the last few weeks. Before I make something easier, I want to make sure I’m solving the right problem. And before I fill my available work time, I want to make sure I’m filling it with the right things.
Otherwise, I can get very efficient at doing work that wasn’t especially important in the first place.
For me, clarity isn’t just about feeling better about my to-do list.
It’s about giving the things that can actually grow my business a better chance of getting done.
Business Clarity Doesn’t Mean Having Your Whole Business Figured Out
I think this is where the word clarity can sound a lot more intimidating than it needs to be.
When someone says we need clarity in our businesses, it can sound like we’re supposed to know exactly what our business will look like three years from now.
Who will we serve? What will we sell? How much money will we make? Which platforms will we use? What’s our five-year plan?
I’d love to know all of that.
But that’s not the kind of clarity I’m talking about.
I’m talking about something much smaller: What deserves my attention next?
I don’t necessarily need to know what I’ll be working on six months from now.
I don’t even need to know everything I’m going to accomplish this month.
Sometimes I just need to know what I’m doing right now. And once I’ve made that decision, something interesting happens.
Everything else gets quieter.
What Deserves Your Attention First?
Of course, deciding to choose one thing creates another problem: How do you choose it?
I’m still working on this myself, but I’m trying to look beyond whichever task happens to be shouting the loudest.
Instead, I can ask what my business actually needs right now.
- Where is something getting stuck?
- Is there a problem that’s preventing something else from working?
- Is there something customers are waiting for?
- Which project is most directly connected to bringing new people into my business or generating revenue?
- Is there something I could finish that would continue working for me after I’m done creating it?
The answer won’t always be obvious. And I don’t think there’s a magical formula that will give us the perfect answer every time.
But even taking ten minutes to think about those questions can be more useful than spending the next three hours bouncing between whatever catches my attention.
I’m not looking for the perfect thing to work on. I’m trying to make a reasonable decision about what matters most right now.
Choosing One Thing Doesn’t Mean Abandoning Everything Else
This is probably one of the hardest parts for me. If I decide one project deserves my attention, what happens to all the other good ideas?
Nothing. They’re still good ideas. I’m just not working on them right now. That distinction has been surprisingly helpful for me.
Sometimes I resist choosing one thing because choosing feels like rejecting everything else. If I work on Project A, what if Project B would have made more money? What if I forget Project C? What if that idea I had for Project D is actually brilliant and I should be doing that instead?
So instead of committing to one, I keep all four mentally active. Which means none of them gets my full attention.
I’m trying to get better at reminding myself that “not now” doesn’t mean “never.” It just means I’ve decided something else deserves my attention first.
Give Yourself Somewhere to Put “Not Now”
There’s a very practical thing that helps with this. Have somewhere to put the things you’ve decided not to work on yet.
It doesn’t need to be a complicated project-management system. It could be a note on your phone, a page in a notebook, a document, or a simple list called Not Now.
When another idea pops into your head while you’re working, you don’t have to decide whether to abandon what you’re doing and chase it.
Put it on the list.
Now your brain doesn’t have to keep reminding you about it because you’re afraid you’ll forget. And when you’re ready to choose your next priority, you have somewhere to look. I really like this because it solves two problems at once.
I don’t have to throw away good ideas. But I also don’t have to treat every good idea like it needs my attention today.
Try This Today
If you’re looking at a long list of things you could be doing in your business, don’t try to organize the entire thing.
Take a few minutes and ask:
Which one of these would make the biggest difference in my business right now?
- Maybe it’s something that could bring in revenue.
- Maybe it’s fixing a bottleneck that’s keeping people from finding or buying from you.
- Maybe it’s finishing something you’ve already invested a lot of time in so it can finally start working for your business.
- Maybe it’s taking care of something that’s blocking several other things.
Choose one. Then ask: What’s the next thing I need to do to move it forward?
Not finish the entire project. Just the next thing. Put everything else somewhere you trust yourself to find it again. Then, for now, let it wait.
You Don’t Need to Know Everything. You Need to Know What’s Next.
I’m still going to have more ideas than I have time to pursue.
I’m still going to have projects competing for my attention. And I’m sure I’ll still occasionally catch myself halfway through one thing wondering whether I should be doing something completely different.
But I’m starting to realize that I don’t need to eliminate all of those possibilities to feel clearer about my business.
I need to decide which one matters now.
Because when I know what deserves my attention, I can stop spending so much of my time deciding, reconsidering, switching directions, and wondering whether I should be doing something else.
I can actually work on it.
And if I’ve chosen well, that means more of the limited time I have for my business is going toward something that can help it move forward.
I don’t need to have my entire business figured out. I just need enough clarity to know what deserves my attention next.
