hosted by: AskPat 380 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 380 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today.
All right, thanks so much. Here's today's question.
Chirag: Hello Pat. My name's Chirag Mehta, and firstly I'd just like to thank you for all the amazing content that you're putting out there for us, and to make our lives and entrepreneurial journeys better. My question is slightly two part. I have two websites, ChiragMehta.co.uk, and TashLoft.com. Both I have expertise in, and I've just started putting the website together, and forming an idea of where I want these to go. My question is, if you have two things that you are confident that you can make successful, how do you particularly spread your energy? Without thinking about monetization, what are the things that you'd prioritize with? Also, would you suggest putting my energy in one, or both, or trying to think of a way of merging the two websites that I mentioned? Thank you very much, and best of luck with everything.
Pat Flynn: Hey Chirag, thank you so much for the question. First of all, I love your accent. I just want to get that out there. Secondly, thank you so much for the kind words. Thirdly, here's to your question. When, I mean this is a very common problem that all entrepreneurs go through. We have a lot of things going on, we have a lot of opportunity, and we often have a lot of things that could potentially go very well for us. A lot of us try a lot of different things at the same time, and sometimes we start to see results from two things at once. This begs the question like you asked, “If you have two things that can do well, how do you prioritize? How do you balance your time? How do you … Where does that focus go?”
Now, I really believe that a lot of times to your last point, that a lot of people end up doing the same thing twice, on two different things. A lot of people have two different projects, and like you said, can be merged. I don't know if that's the case for what you have going on, but a lot of times people are doubling up their work, or they are spreading themselves thin when they could combine a lot of the things that they do, do already, and turn them into one mega site. Not necessarily a mega site, I don't want to say mega because mega makes it seem like it's going to be a huge thing, when it doesn't necessarily have to be, it can just be more fine tuned.
Where as where you're having two separate things, you might be doubling up on kinds of content, the things you're saying, the time that you spend on social media, which could potentially be used for both if they were in a combination with each other. Where you could be very focused, and almost trim the weeds out of both of them, and merge them into great thing. Two good things aren't as good as one great thing.
Now I will say that if you feel like they are not able to be combined and merged, then you're going to have to make some decisions. By far, the best thing you can do is focus on one at a time. Not to say that you have to get rid of one, but just put one aside, at least for now, or until the primary one has a stopping point. That's where I do a lot of my work, and how I've been able to accomplish a lot in several different spaces, is that I do focus on one thing at a time. I always try to focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes that one thing gets to a stopping point, where I can then re-shift my focus for the time being. Maybe that project is in somebody else's hands, somebody on my team, or a VA, or a developer. They're going to spend three weeks with it, trying to build it out, or whatever the case may be. Then I can refocus my attention to something else.
Where entrepreneurs get into trouble, is when they have two things that they think is great, or often more than two, and they put some of their energy into this one day, they put some of their energy in the second one another day, some of their other energy into the third one, one day, and then just to kind of as a hypothetical example, then you have these three different things, each that are 33% of the way through. Which to the end user, is nothing, right? Even 95% of something is zero percent to the end user, the person who's going to benefit the most from it. If you spread yourself thin like that, you're going to be a third of the way through all three of those projects, which does nobody good, especially you who have put in 100% of effort in three different things.
Well, if you shift your focus to one thing, 33% on those two other projects combined put into that first project, well then you have 99, or essentially 100% of that particular project done. Then if you're at a stopping point, if you begin to put some team resources into it, maybe you use automation, use some software to have it work on it's own, then you can re-shift your focus and just keep checking in with that other one every once in awhile. This is what I do, but then my primary motivations, my focus, everything I learn about is for that next thing. Project number two, whatever that may be. It is a dance, it does take a little bit of balance, and just making sure that you are organized throughout the whole process is the most important thing.
That's how I would go about it. I mean the worst thing you could do is spread your energy across multiple projects, and have nothing be completed. You would have been much better off completing 100% of a project. If that maybe fails, well at least you ave it 100% of an opportunity, and then you can move onto the next one before you find out after working three times as hard, three times as long, that you just didn't put as much energy as you should have, or maybe you just waited too long because you were spreading yourself too thin.
That's the warning for all of you out there, and for Chirag. I would definitely make sure to prioritize. Now, how do you know which one is first? Well that depends on a lot of things obviously. Who can you help out the most? That's who I always figure out. Who needs the most help, and how can I best help them? Keeping those questions in mind, I often come up with a prioritization list in terms of what I can do the quickest, but also the best. Or who I can kind of work with to make all that happen. That sounds kind of general, and I can only be general right now because I don't know exactly what your business is about, or your businesses are about, but that's all I can give you right now.
Hopefully that makes sense. Really a lot of times, your gut will tell you a lot. Your gut, and your intuition will tell you a lot about which one you should be working on first. Often times entrepreneurs, they have multiple projects. They work on one, that one just seems to take off. They don't even go back to the other ones, because they are completely focused, as they should be, on that one that is taking off, that does require a lot of their time, but they enjoy doing that. Imagine that not happening because you are so focused on all these other things at the same time.
Just keep all that in mind Chirag, thank you so much for the question today, I really appreciate it. An AskPat T-shirt is going to be headed your way for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com, you can ask right there on that page. Thanks to the Widget from SpeakPipe.com.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate your time today. A couple of final things. One of course, the quote of the day. There's always a quote of the day here on AskPat. This one is from Francis Bacon. He said, “Time is the measure of business.” Short and sweet, but that's pretty deep when you think about it. “Time is the measure of business.”
Thank you so much, I appreciate you guys. I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat, bye.
