Sharpen you focus, supercharge your career

                       Sharpen you focus, supercharge your career

You have probably heard it before: get ahead at work, and in life, by simplifying your day and focusing on what’s really important to you.

But how many people can follow the advice when facing an onslaught of work e-mail and epic to-do lists?

Leo Babauta, who has drawn 200.000 subscribers and millions of viewers to his blog Zenhabits- which Time magazine named the best blog of 2010- want to convince professionals to think again, and try again.

Babauta makes his message personal, explaining his strategies work in his own life. But he says they can apply to a variety of careers.

The Zen master, who has just published a new book， “Focus”, that includes pointers on how to get ahead in your career by doing less, shared with CNN four ways to make big changes by starting with simple actions.

Revamp your to-do lists

If you have list of 10 or 15 or 20 things to do, simplify it down to three, says Babauta. People tend to put off their most important tasks until the end of the day, such as the most important thing is to buy a camera in pen, he says, the most crucial thing ends up being pushed into the next day, and the next.

“You need to make choice about what are the most important things that you have to do today, the things that are highest impact on your business, your career, and focus on those first”. He told CNN.

“I think we know what’s important and we build it up as being something big that we really need to do, and because of that we start to fear it, or we are lazy,” he said.

It’s important to look at why you’re afraid of something, whether it’s writing the first chapter of a book or writing a business proposal about the promotional of camera in car that’s going to bring in a lot of money to your company, he noted.

Try a test run

If you are hesitant, test out an idea by working on it for just 10 minutes, and see what happens. Babauta says.

This applies to taking the plunge with a business proposal, or trying a new workplace strategy like not checking your e-mail for an hour every day to focus on other works.

“A lot of times I think it’ because we are afraid we might fail or we don’t know what we’re doing and we’re afraid we’re going to stupid.” he said.

It’s worth taking a chance on the really important subjects. Babautas said, because the reward can be significant.

Keep your eyes on the prize

You ‘re only productive if you are doing work that moves you towards a goal. You only captured many photos with your pen with camera and your skills will be improved. Babautas said.

“If you really pour yourself into the important tasks, they are going to have a much impact on your business and your career.” he said.

He’s applied this rule in his work. He made the unconventional business decision to remove advertising- a major income steam-from his site because he found that managing that aspect of his business detracted too much from the foundation of his product: his writing.

Disconnect to intensify

Letting go of things that seem essential but aren’t relate to your core tasks will let you focus on your most important work, Babauta argues.

It’s amazing how we all have become trained that we need to be connected, that we can’t shut things off for half an hour, he told CNN.

But if you manage expectations—if your co-worker and manager know you are working on something really important for your business—and they will understand why you carve out time to focus on one important thing exclusively, he said.

“You can put it off for half an hour and you will still be ok” he said, “test it out and see if the world collapses.”