Happy New Year and Welcome to 2012.

Since my last Dragonball Series post I’ve been seeking what else I was to share but no brain or spiritual downloads were forthcoming on that topic. Nevertheless there are some things I must share that are being downloaded. I sense a season approaching where God has prepared some things for the prepared. Many have been in the preparation stage for  a while. Moving forward we must heed the instruction to F.O.C.U.S. Since I love acronyms, it is only natural that I have one to adequately describe what focus means during this season.

F.O.C.U.S. = Finalying Our Commitments Using Strategy.

On a daily basis we are bombarded with so much visual, physical, verbal and mental data that we inevitably become multitaskers which frequently (at least for me anyway) leads to multiple stalemates where nothing or only a few things are actually completed in a reasonable length of time. Here are a few insights I foresee as we embark on this F.O.C.U.S. journey.

1. The enemy of F.O.C.U.S. is distraction. Distraction can be identified because it comes to dis(tance) you from your traction. In other words it causes you to lose traction, lose ground or lose forward momentum. We must be diligent in recognizing distractions and bounce back quickly from them because time is of the essence.

2. Silence the voices. Separate the other voices from God’s otherwise you won’t know if you’re following his or theirs which leads to indecision or stalemate. A stalemate is defined as any position or situation in which no action can be taken or progress made; deadlock.  It’s important to be in a listening position so you can get clarity of direction.

3. Streamline your life activities by removing the unnecessary, This may be difficult if you are like me and wear a number of different hats at any given time. Here’s what recently worked for me: Spread out or write out everything you’ve been working on or thinking of working on or accomplishing. Create categories such as  God; Self; Family; Ministry; Business; Job; School, etc. Include a category for ‘Incomplete Plans.”Then prayerfully identify 1-2 things in each category to focus and work on.

4. Book It! For those of you who get or have gotten multitudes of great ideas that never seem to manifest because distractions (and/or procrastination or fear) cause you to start and stop or never start at all, get you a Dream/Idea Book. A simple wire notebook that you write down ideas in as they come. Put a date on them and whenever you get more on the idea, return to the book and write it down.

5. Plan your strategy for completion. How are you going to do it?  How long you estimate it will take? What’s needed to complete it?

6. Create a Calendar where you schedule your steps in manageable bites of time.

7. Implement your plans and follow through to finalization. Sometime you’ll find you need to revise or refresh your strategic plan. That’s normal as long as you don’t keep revising and never finalize.