![\"Artist](\"https:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4025\/4544189643_d6cf60ae8c_m.jpg\")
<\/a>We Get Distracted<\/b>Well, there are as many reasons as there are minutes in the day to get distracted. And, well, we have so many options. What shall I work on this second? Shall I jump into a chat on Twitter? Should I write a blog post? Or should I finish that client item first? Or catch up on my accounting? Or ….<\/p>\n
What we should do is focus: carve one stroke at a time.<\/p>\n
Focus on your Income Producing Activities. Sounds easy. What are those IPA’s? Well, unfortunately, we each have our own, because we have our own goals.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n Start With Your Goals<\/b> IPA Examples<\/b> Customize these for your own business. Use the self promotion actions that work for you. You can customize it further by assigning a high point value to billable work, and a low point value to stuff you like to do anyway. Client work = 10, Blogging on your own site = 5, for example. (Tweeting = 0 is probably a good rule for Twitter-addicts, like me.)<\/p>\n Apply Daily<\/b> Review and Adjust<\/b> Celebrate your successes. Part of what makes this work is the reward you feel when you take action on your goals.<\/p>\n Best Resource<\/b> Bottom Line<\/b> Try this out for a week, and let us know how it goes.<\/p>\n New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see? Get our updates<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Income Producing Activities are those actions that move you towards your business and income goals. So why don’t we spend our time working on exactly those things? We Get DistractedWell, there are as many reasons as there are minutes in the day to get distracted. And, well, we have so many options. What shall I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,5],"tags":[104],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7311,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions\/7311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It starts with your goals. If you’re smart enough to figure out what you are trying to accomplish this year, this quarter or this month, you can figure out what you need to do regularly to get there.<\/p>\n
What might be an IPA for a freelancer?<\/p>\n\n
Now that you a list of potential IPA’s, the key is to use them. Give yourself a daily goal:<\/p>\n\n
It will take some time to make this fit your work style and your goals. Adjust the actions, the daily target, the points values. Find a level that challenges you to improve, but rewards you for doing what you know you should.<\/p>\n
There is one outstanding resource that I’ve recommended here since 2006. (In this classic: Focus on your IPA’s<\/a>.) It’s\u00a0Dave Seah’s Printable CEO<\/a>. There are many different versions of it, and even a customizable spreadsheet.<\/p>\n
Here’s the simple system to keep your mind on track while you work:<\/p>\n\n