It wasn’t until the day I started working for a startup that my browser tabs got out of control. In my corporate role prior, with a clear(er) lane of responsibility, I always did a good job managing my browser and not getting distracted by too many moving parts. But when I started working for a startup as the leader of a lean and mean marketing team all of that was turned on its head.
It’s fascinating how one day you can decide, “This tab is important” and in an effort to not lose sight of it you leave it open. Inevitably, there comes a day when you see it – shrinking ever so smaller in the list of open tabs – and in the exact same moment you click on it you ask yourself, “What’s this?” you immediately remember and re-convince yourself that it’s still important.
The song and dance continue for months and time and time again you justify why that tab (and a growing list of others) deserve to be left open. Sometimes it even gets accidentally clicked as you look for the tab you really want but can’t see the titles anymore because of how large the list has grown.
There continues to be research showing humans aren’t really capable of multi-tasking. Yet we – myself included – continue to try. It’s deceptive and really feels like we’re doing it when we think we are, but in reality, it’s distracting us from going deeper or getting more creative on one specific task to realize its full potential.
As quarters passed in my new role, my browser window continued to resemble my mind more and more. An endless list of things that had been started, discussed, and shared, but not yet given my full attention to make it impactful. It was fueled by the endless opportunities for our startup and as I say all across different pieces of content there is no shortage of marketing ideas. It comes down to the execution.
But those small tabs that represent the “I never got around to it” topics are slowly draining your energy just as those small tabs are slowly draining your laptop’s battery. A constant reminder of what you didn’t get to and why you’re not getting enough done instead of having confidence in the priority list you’ve set for yourself and being comfortable with the fact that some things have to wait.
Don’t fall for it.
I lacked prioritization and focus. In a busy environment, each item felt equally important just as the tabs maintained equal size no matter how many I added to the list. I’d get excited about an idea and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that – just like any open tab – I’ll come back to this before the day or week’s end and put a bow on it.
Then weeks, months, and quarters would pass before the opportunity/tab got my focus again. Even then the focus was incomplete based on the other immediate needs swirling around. The complete and powerful marketing plan that we started the year with would slowly be diluted with a new shiny object or a misdirection of our energy.
I don’t like to say “No” to ideas. Specifically good ones (ha). But I do say “Not right now” a lot. It’s a helpful approach to maintain an environment of problem solvers and encourage the sharing of ideas, but my delivery could often lack clarity. I’d still let the excitement get the best of me and offer a way to get started on it just to feel the pressure of fanning the flame in the coming weeks.
I started using the Eisenhower Matrix for different tasks that I had piling up. It’s a helpful method for staying focused on important tasks and not getting distracted by the unimportant ones that are always so perfectly disguised as, well, important. I won’t go into detail on it (use the link above if you’d like to), but it’s the four quadrants that are important for a leader and you drop tasks in their appropriate quadrant after thoughtfully considering its place:
Top left: Do - Urgent and important tasks
Top right: Schedule - Important but non-urgent tasks
Bottom left: Delegate - Urgent but not important tasks
Bottom right: Delete - Not important and not urgent (<< a lot of the tabs in your browser)
I had a lot of success in a relatively short amount of time after starting to use the matrix and think that my team and our marketing plan saw benefits from it as well; less time getting involved in decisions that didn’t have major risk, adding feedback where it wasn’t absolutely necessary, or delaying a project kickoff because it wasn’t critical to our marketing plan in the first place.
We were moving faster while being thorough.
If you’ve had similar challenges, I highly recommend giving it a try and seeing the benefit it can bring to your team and your marketing plan. Even just for the initial exercise and moment of clarity around how you habitually categorize certain tasks in one quadrant (ahem, top left) when in fact it might be the completely wrong one.
While I incorporated the Eisenhower Matrix into my day-to-day routine, I still held onto the tabs in my browser. It was only recently in my entrepreneurial endeavors that I started trying to change my behavior and get back to a cleaner browser window. Taking refreshing reset moments where I closed the window entirely and opened it back up with only the tabs I needed to focus on the current task.
The focus that comes with it is hard to deny.
Now think of this from the perspective of your business goals and marketing plan. Are there too many goals to count? Is the marketing plan spanning multiple tabs on a spreadsheet because everybody needs some space? Maybe some tactics hanging around from the last few years that need to be moved up to the important and urgent quadrant of your Eisenhower Matrix? If you’re a driven individual in a leadership role, you won’t struggle to identify opportunities or ever have a shortage of ideas – the challenge is which of those ideas are you going to shortlist this year with a commitment and focus that brings your marketing plan to life?
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