Concentration

Concentration is necessary precisely because the executive faces so many tasks clamoring to be done.

If there is any “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time. There are always more important contributions to be made than there is time available to make them.

The more an executive focuses on upward contribution, the more will the person require fairly big continuous chunks of time. The more he or she switches from being busy to achieving results, the more will the person shift to sustained efforts. Similarly, the more an executive works at making strengths productive, the more will the executive become conscious of the need to concentrate the human strengths available on major opportunities. This is the only way to get results.

This is the “secret” of those people” who “do so many things” and apparently so many difficult things. The do only one at a time. As a result, they need much less time in the end than the rest of us. The people who get nothing done often work a great deal harder.

Effective executives do not race. They set an easy pace but keep going steadily. Effective executives know that they have to get many things done. Therefore, they concentrate on doing one thing at a time, and on doing first things first.

Concentration—that is, the courage to impose on time and events his or her own decision as to what really matters and comes first—is the executive’s only hope of becoming the master of time and events instead of their whipping boy.

ACTION POINT: Concentrate on one thing at a time and move deliberately, not frantically through your priorities.