I work with people who want to make a living doing what they love, using their creativity to build a business and passion to drive it forward. Although my clients do many different things from fashion to film, they tend to have two things in common.

1. They often believe they don’t have enough money, clients or time.
2. They are unaware they could be sitting on a goldmine of untapped resources.

This problem of scarcity is rife in both life and business – especially with the current state of the economy, but if we spend all our time focusing on what is lacking we are actually in danger of missing out on potential treasures.

Luckily there are some simple steps you can take to help shift your focus so you can start to make the most of everything you’ve got.

Focus on what you want

The first step is to focus on what you actually want, rather than what you haven’t got.  How much is enough?  How much money, how many clients or how much more time is going to make the difference?  This is a question I always ask my clients and the answer I usually get is that they don’t know.

They say that the quality of an answer depends on the quality of the question – and it’s true. If you tell your brain you need more money, the usual response is panic!  But, if you can get more specific your brain has something to work with and starts looking for solutions.  Try it yourself, you might be surprised at how little you need.  For example if you want two more projects where could you get them from?  It could be as simple as asking existing clients for a bit more work.

Focus on what’s working

The 80/20 rule was created in the 19th century by Pareto an Italian economist but is surprisingly still very relevant today. It states that just 20% of what we do has 80% of the total impact and this applies to every area of our life.

We might have a cupboard full of food but eat the same 20% of items 80% of the time by having cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch everyday.  Or have a wardrobe full of clothes but wear our favourite jeans most of the time.  In business it means that as a rule of thumb 80% of sales could come from just 20% of your customers or products.

The key is to focus the majority of your time and resources on the 20% - not waste them on areas that aren’t working.  Most successful businesses are niche – they offer a high level of expertise in a specific area and are very clear about who their customers are and what they offer them.  As the American comedian Bill Crosby puts it ‘I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody’

Focus on what you’ve got

In this digital age having loads of friends is de rigour. We are more connected than ever meaning that it should be easier to get our message out or ask for help.  However, how many of your friends, contacts and colleagues actually know what you do?  Let alone how they could help you grow your business?  Based on my client’s experiences – not a lot.

Often the tendency to look for new business focuses on trying to convince complete strangers to buy your products and services.  As word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing this isn’t always a great strategy.

If you've got hundreds of friends, acquaintances and clients then maybe you could consider applying the 80/20 rule to identify the key people to start talking to.

I have suggested this process to hundreds of clients and without fail they have suddenly remembered someone who could give them what they need, be it the person who works for a blue chip company they want sponsorship from, or a friend who could help them get their online profile up.

By undertaking the first two steps and focusing on what you want and what’s working you should have a much better idea of what you still need, if anything at all.  Once you know – get it out there, tell everyone in your network about your exciting plans and what you want and you could be amazed at how quickly you get it.

Readers of this blog or my ebook will know that Leo Babauta from Zen Habits is one of my favourite writers (the 'Z' in From Apps to Zen is for Zen Habits, Leo's world famous blog). So of course I have been waiting to read his new book Focus: a Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction ever since he announced on his blog that he was writing it. 

After a more traditional writing approach for his first book, The Power of Less, Leo tried an experimental process for this new book - posting each chapter on his blog for feedback and comment as it was written. This allowed him to test and refine the material and has resulted in a beautiful book. Unusually the book is also 'uncopyrighted', so that the content of the book can also be shared freely.

Focus observes that we live in an unprecedented Age of Distraction with multiple activities competing for our attention at any one moment. We convince ourselves that we are excellent multi-taskers even through research shows that single-tasking is a more effective way of getting things done. And our brains are continually working against us always anticipating the dopamine high of an email or a status update - much more exciting then the task we are working on.  

Leo says "  ... the key to many of the struggles we face these days, from being productive and achieving our goals, to getting healthy and fit in the face of fast food and inactivity, to finding simplicity and peace amidst chaos and confusion ... is itself simple: focus."

This wonderful book comes in two 'flavours' - free and premium. The premium version contains bonus audio and written guides including contributions by some of my other heros: Everett Bogue, Gwen Bell and Michael Bungay Stanier.

Leo starts the book with a great quote from the famous Zen Buddhist teacher and author Thich Nhat Hanh:

“Smile, breathe and go slowly.”

In the Age of Distraction I suggest you keep this in your mind when reading Leo's book and give this book some real focus.

Download Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction.

This blog post is part of The Business Yogi series – inspiration and thoughts for business based on the philosophy, principles and practices of yoga.

Anyone who has practiced yoga, or even tried to sit still and think of nothing for a few minutes, knows the phenomenon of ‘Monkey Mind’ – the uncanny ability of the mind to jump from thought to thought the way that a monkey jumps from tree to tree. No matter how hard we try not to, as yogis we regularly find ourselves drifting ‘off the mat’ reliving conversations at work, planning our shopping list or other random thoughts in the midst of our practice.

The trick to quieting the Monkey Mind is to learn to observe these random thoughts without engaging in them. What that means in our yoga practice is the use of the breath and physical postures to focus the mind and bring it back to the present moment. Easier said then done but something that does become easier with practice.

In our working day the Monkey Mind is in full swing. We try to concentrate and focus on a piece of important work but get distracted by emails, texts and tweets. We live in an era of what Gary W. Small, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine in California calls ‘partial continuous attention’ - we’re constantly looking out for the next exciting bit of information that might come our way. These small digital distractions charge up our dopamine reward system as we anticipate what’s coming but in doing so they interrupt our focus.

The best strategy that I have found for beating the Monkey Mind in my working life is to focus on one thing at a time rather than multitasking. A recent article featured on productivity blog Lifehacker extolled the virtues of ‘singletasking’ i.e. doing one thing at a time and gave practical suggestions for getting started.

A complement to the strategy of singletasking is ensuring that we create the time and the space within our working day for these areas of focus, limiting the digital interruptions. There are more ideas on how you can achieve this in my ebook From Apps to Zen: 26+ Ideas for Building a Business with Balance.

A final thought on this idea of quieting the Monkey Mind is not being too hard on ourselves. Even in the most Zen gardens of focus, the Monkey Mind will want to come and play. So be kind on yourself. As we say in yoga, just bring your focus ‘back to the mat’.

Namaste.

[Image with thanks to dbog via Creative Commons]

Some thoughts for the new year by some of the world’s most influential bloggers and thinkers including Seth Godin.

I love the tagline ‘things to think about (and do) this year’. Take five minutes out of your day to absorb the messages in this presentation and start 2010 afresh. Thanks to Social Media Monday for the link.

Happy New Year from me!