How do you remain present while running a business?
When you are pulled in every direction, it’s challenging to remain fully engaged in the present.
We’ve compiled a list of 5 strategies for remaining present.
How Distractedness Affects Our Lives
Professional Struggles:
Dropped correspondences. Forgotten meetings. Missed opportunities. Things fall through the cracks when we struggle to remain present while running our business.
Multitasking is an accepted way of life for entrepreneurs. But the negative effects of multitasking can sabotage your professional growth.
Personal Struggles:
If we leave distractedness unchecked, we run the risk of neglecting relationships and missing out on meaningful moments in our lives.
Five Strategies for Remaining Present:
1. Engage Using All Your Senses
Engage with your environment by consciously observing how your senses interact with your environment. Is there a smell in the air? What is catching your eye? How does something taste or feel?
Use your senses to ground yourself in the present and direct yourself back towards the task at hand.
2. Practice Active Listening
Active listening provides two benefits:
- You ground yourself in your interactions by actively engaging with the conversation.
- Your teammates receive your best effort because you are engaged with details and striving to understand.
3. Write Things Out of Your Head
Our minds are not built to store all of the to-dos and details connected to our busy modern lives.
When a new to-do or thought comes to mind, write it down. Get it out of your brain and onto a list.
Remove the distraction of extraneous thoughts and give your brain the space to do its best work on the current task.
4. Set Aside Time to be Present
Present for yourself: Find moments throughout the day to recenter yourself and practice mindfulness. Before you go into a meeting, take a moment to breathe, center your thoughts, and consider what goals you want to achieve in the meeting.
Present for others: Healthy team communication is essential. Set aside specific windows of time dedicated exclusively to hearing members’ status reports and concerns.
5. Address the Root Cause: Embrace Delegation
What is often the core reason for a distracted mind? Excessive workload. Entrepreneurs take on an extraordinarily high number of responsibilities. When we are pulled in every direction, it becomes nearly impossible to give individual tasks our best effort.
The solution to this problem? Delegation.
Exceptional leaders understand that their time is valuable and limited. Instead of trying to do everything themselves, they identify their strong points, focus on them, and bring alongside themselves people who can excellently cover their weaker points.
Success Stories: How We Have Helped Entrepreneurs Like You
Building that team is our specialty at Superpowers. The best place to start is with your number two – your assistant. Our Superpowers Executive Assistants help you gain leverage on your time and achieve a present mind.
Here are a few examples of how our Assistants are making a difference:
1. Our Superpowers Assistant, Kassie, has “saved hours a day” for her client, Maryna. Maryna sends numerous emails daily, and it is easy to confuse different clients. Kassie noticed this issue and proactively suggested handling starting-point drafts for emails.
Now, Maryna can open up her laptop, personalize any final details, and have the emails sent out – no confusion about the subject, what to say, or who is receiving the email. This practice has made the emailing process exponentially more efficient and free from error.
2. Another client of ours, Chad Gill, recounted the peace of mind he has found because of his Superpowers Assistant, Emily. She has organized and centralized everything he needs to do and know about:
“I know the comfort of lying in bed at night knowing that my tomorrow is planned out. And getting up in the morning knowing, I might not remember everything I’m supposed to do today, but I can go to a place where I will, and it’s all right there, and it’s all manageable, and it’s going to work.” – Chad Gill
3. Ben Hernandez, another Superpowers client, has discovered clarity of thought and a sense of freedom because of his Assistant, Amber.
“Absolutely, I think that I have gained freedom. The freedom of headspace of knowing that I’m not going to go home at night and log on at 9 pm and go through 150 to 200 emails. [It] has been unbelievably helpful.” -Ben Hernandez
Next Steps
What do you need to consider when onboarding your right-fit assistant? We put together an article on determining if your assistant is right for you.
Even better, you can sit down one-on-one and have a personalized talk about your specific needs, book a discovery call today! We are happy to talk through the process with you!
