Focus Your Key to More Productivity at Work

by Wolff, Jurgen

• ISBN13: 9780137002566
• ISBN10: 0137002564
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-28
• Publisher: Ft Pr

Summary

Written for employees who feel distracted or scattered, "Focus" is sure to help readers get past procrastination, overcome today's 24/7 bombardment of messages and demands, escape from deadly routine, and infuse their lives with creativity, flexibility, and power.

Author Biography

Jurgen Wolff is a writer, lecturer, and consultant. His books include Your Writing Coach (Nicholas Brealey) and Do Something Different (Virgin Books). His specialty is developing innovative right-brain approaches to creativity, productivity, and marketing.

 

He has also written more than 100 television episodes for the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. His film, The Real Howard Spitz, starred Kelsey Grammer, and his mini-series, Midnight Man, starred Rob Lowe. His plays have been performed in New York, London, Los Angeles, and Berlin. His original animated series, “Norman Normal,” has been broadcast throughout

Europe.

 

As well as teaching workshops on personal development, time management and creativity, he has written

many articles, including a personal development column for the Times Educational Supplement. He has made numerous television and radio appearances in support of his books and workshops.

 

The companion website to Focus: The Power of Targeted Thinking is www.Focusquick.com. He publishes a free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin, which is full of tips and techniques about being more creative and productive. For a free subscription, please email [e-mail]. His writing-related websites are www.YourWritingCoach.com and www.TimetoWrite.com, and his writing blog is www.TimetoWrite.blogs.com.

 

He divides his time between London and Southern California.

 

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xiii
About the Author	p. xv
Introduction	p. xvii
Finding Your Focus
How to Focus on Your Vital 20%	p. 1
How to Focus on Your First Goals	p. 15
Your Focus Strategies
How to Focus Your Time Patterns for Success	p. 39
How to Overcome the Obstacles to Focus	p. 57
How to Focus on What Already Works	p. 75
How to (Finally) Beat Procrastination	p. 89
Your Focus Tools
How to Use the Alter Ego Strategy	p. 105
How to Manage Other People	p. 117
How to Focus Your Language for Extraordinary Results	p. 129
How to Create Information Focus	p. 153
How to Conquer the Paper Mountain	p. 163
How to Tame the Email Monster	p. 177
How to Master Meetings and Networking	p. 189
Putting It All Together
How to Deal with Deadlines and Multiple Projects	p. 203
How to Maintain Your Newfound Focus	p. 223
How to Put It All Together to Reach All Your Goals	p. 235
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

FOCU_A01 Introduction How Creating Focus Will Change Your LifeHave you ever felt frustrated by knowing that you could do a lot better in your career and the other parts of your life, but you just can't seem to do it? Have you ever been angry with yourself because you're not achieving your potential and time is slipping by? Do you have a vision of the life you'd like but no clear path for how to get there?If those statements ring a bell, you've come to the right place. This book isn't about what, it's about how. You probably already know what you want from life (and if you don't, Chapter 1 will help you clarify it). Probably the big question in your mind is, "How do I get there from here?"What this change requires is focus but, frankly, the world conspires to prevent you from having that kind of focus. It's not surprising that you feel scattered and distracted. You are being bombarded every waking minute with advertising messages that pull you in one direction, the expectations of family members and colleagues that pull you in another, haunted by the ghost of goals you may have set for yourself but didn't reach for reasons that weren't your fault. On top of that, you're expected to be reachable 24/7, so any little scraps of time that you might have had for reflection are snatched away from you. Under these circumstances, it would be amazing if you were able to focus.Well, prepare to be amazedand amazing.This book will take you, step by step, through the process of deciding what you really want, figuring out what has stopped you in the past, becoming aware of the disruptive influences in the way you use time (and how to fix them), and learning how to overcome the factors that hold back the majority of people. Finally, it will show you how to put all this information together into a plan you can follow again and again as you set new goals for yourself. The methods revealed in this book will become automatic habits that lead to success with less and less effort on your part.Many of the techniques in this book are new. They are based on the fact that the old methods just don't work anymore, especially for right-brain people. The traditional time management techniques were developed during the simpler industrial age to make people doing repetitive tasks more efficient. Using them in today's atmosphere of 24/7 connectivity and constant demands leads to frantic multitasking and firefighting. The result: lots of activity, not much achievement.If you have tried the traditional methods of time management and found them time-consuming, restrictive, and ineffective, the odds are you are a right-brain person. If you like variety, have good intuition, and enjoy new challenges but hate being trapped in old routines, this book has been written especially for you.Today the need is for creativity, flexibility, and making smart choices. Focus shows you how to identify what's most important and how to direct all your energy, without distractions, to the tasks that propel you toward success.I know the techniques you are about to learn work because they've worked for me and for hundreds of people who have participated in my Create Your Future workshops. I predict that you're going to enjoy