My Top 10 Favorite, Fast Ways To Amplify Team Focus (And Return To Sanity)

Start producing by reducing, so you can focus.

I see teams today suffering from focus scarcity.

• Back-to-back Zoom meetings
• Too much work and too little time
• No space to recharge (or even think)
• Juggling many “top priority” requests
• No time to stop and improve their process
• Incessant requests to “just do this one favor”
• Constantly having to stop and wait on others

To stop the madness, focus needs…well…more focus.

But this does not mean more rigor. Increasing focus requires subtraction, doing less. When you get rid of the inessential, focus is natural. You avoid the extra burden produced by shoving more in than you can fit into a small window of time.

Focus gives back both time and energy.

Here’s what my teams do with the extra space and gas in the tank that focus buys them:

• Take a break
• Learn a new skill
• Improve the process
• Automate repetitive tasks
• Deliver some more valuable tasks
• Help someone else solve a problem

What would your team do with extra time and energy?

Steal my favorite 10 focus amplifiers below to get back your team’s sanity.

#1. Establish a foundation for joy.

Focus can’t survive without joy.

“I think people get satisfaction from living for a cause that’s greater than themselves. They want to leave an imprint.”
—Daniel Pink¹

A team whose members have no purpose, autonomy, or time to master their craft will flame out. Focus is not the problem that needs solving for them. Without a strong why behind their work that they believe in, focus won’t stick. They’re checking things off a list, and it’s uninspiring work.

They lack the proper motivation.

Motivation comes from two places: intrinsic (from within) and extrinsic (from external sources).

Dan Pink in his book Drive concluded intrinsic motivation sustains performance. And it arrives from high-levels of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. This is the foundation of team engagement.

Engaged teams have a fire within.

In my experience, teams that embraced true agency transformed our workplace, creating some of the most memorable, joyful, and engaging moments of my career. We mastered our craft and learned ways to deliver better and operate better. We had a purpose we were passionate about; one that drove us and grounded us.

Harness joy first, focus comes next.

2. Apply the 1-1-1 framework.

Focus requires a target.

When team members have too much in flight, they waste time, effort, and energy. This could stem from serving on many teams, having many goals, or starting all requests at once.

It’s a losing game of:

• Costly errors
• Divided focus
• Context switching

The 1-1-1 framework fixes this fast. So what is it?

• 1 Team: Each team member is fully dedicated to one team.
• 1 Goal: A single goal gives the team a clear target.
• 1 Item: The team completes one valuable customer request at a time.

Boom! Instant productivity at a steady, relaxed, sustainable pace.

3: Add 1 to the 1-1-1 framework.

Take the 1-1-1 framework up a notch with 1 task per work item in focus for the team at a time.

All the brilliant minds now focus like a laser on one task. They make better decisions, build quality in, and cross-pollinate knowledge. This takes focus to the extreme, and all the benefits get turned up to eleven.

Your flow of value will hit the zenith of awesomeness—increased flow, less effort.

Adding 1 task in focus to the 1-1-1 framework increases flow with less effort.

If this sounds too good to be true, let me tell you a real story.

I had a data science team who applied this single-task approach. What used to take the team six months to deliver changed to two weeks. Defect-riddled work became defect-free. The team used to stress out jumping between tasks. Now their work was fun, focused, and energizing.

Do you think this team kept up this practice? You bet it did.

1 team, 1 goal, 1 item, and, if you dare, 1 task.

The 1-1-1 (+1) framework will bring peak, easy flow to your team.

4. Take many small steps.

Adopting small, manageable steps reduces effort and increases impact, each action building powerfully upon the last.

Trying to tackle a big problem all at once causes big problems. Big steps explode your effort, time, and risk. And you might miss the landing.

Many small steps give you several benefits:

• Clearer options
• Accomplishment
• Ability to reorient
• Preserves energy
• Easier to understand
• Less chance of big errors
• Easier to back up and try again if you misstep

But improved focus is the biggest benefit.

Small steps keep your attention tuned in. They make your focus sharp, effortless, and pointed in the right direction. Small steps produce steady momentum. And steady is fast (think The Tortoise and the Hare).

Think big toward one goal, but keep steps small.

5. Go the distance and finish the race.

Stopping short of customer delight can dilute your focus.

It’s like running the first mile of a 5K race and stopping. While you finished the first mile, you didn’t finish the race. Maybe it becomes your pattern to enter races and run only the first mile. You never hear the crowd roar when you cross the finish line. And the dopamine rush from finishing the race never hits you.

In time, you tire of the unfulfilling partial race to no reward.

But keeping a steady focus and not giving up until you delight your customers changes the game. Finishing the race like this is energizing and enhances focus. 

When I see customers getting value, it’s like an addiction. I want more of that. It motivates me to enrich their lives. And I jump on the next customer solution, driven to make a difference again. 

So, gain energy to focus by truly solving a customer need.

6. Leave space to breathe.

All work and no play makes for a sad, sluggish team.

You can’t satiate the hunger of the corporate efficiency beast. If left untamed, it would have teams running 24×7. But this is a rat race teams must avoid. It leads to burnout, disengagement, and plummeting performance. I’ve been here, and it’s not a blast to work until you sleep, dream about work, and get up at 6 to start it all again.

Worn out teams can’t focus.

Focus and steady, smooth flow requires space to rest and recharge.

• You will make fewer mistakes when rested.
• Your brain needs time to marinate on complex problems.
• A nurtured life outside of work will put your mind at ease.

So, take breaks as a team throughout the day. Leave work at work. And put slack in your plans.

Remember, you are running a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself.

7. Solve issues now.

A problem swept under the rug eventually starts to smell.

Problems have an expiry date. When they go bad, and you can no longer ignore them, they will interrupt your team’s focus. And these stale issues will be many times harder to solve than if you had solved them when they surfaced.

Nothing kills flow like a thorny, ignored, growing problem spoiling your team’s focus.

The solution: stop the line and fix the problem when it surfaces.

1. The team stops work.
2. The team communicates work has stopped and requests help.
3. The team orients and tries to solve.
4. Support arrives to help.
5. Problem resolved. Work resumes.

Solving issues when they arrive minimizes the impact to focus.

8. Save tomorrow’s problems for tomorrow.

Enriching a solution for “just in case” scenarios is a distraction.

I often find myself imagining of all the edge cases for solving a problem. This type of rigorous pathing analysis regularly arises in the quality-minded among us (me included). But every path is not equal. Solutions for rare or untravelled paths are best saved for tomorrow. 

Don’t get distracted by “what if” bunny trails.

When these come up, make a note of them. Keep a notebook or whiteboard handy. Jot them down so you don’t forget. Then promptly do forget and get back to the task at hand.

Remember, you won’t need something until you actually need it.

Focus on what matters now.

9. “Not Now.”

You can solve any problem, but you can’t solve every problem today.

When we jump on a side request or favor, our focus becomes divided away from our task at hand. Now, we are in a situation where 1+1 < 2 (moving away from the 1–1–1 framework). This is what happens when we start two activities at the same time. We get partial completion of each activity in the same amount of time it takes to focus and complete those same activities, one at a time.

Everything takes longer when we start many things at once.

So, when a stakeholders ask you for a favor, pause for a beat. Explain you will get to it after you finish what you’re working on. This is in their best interest and yours.

“Not now” preserves your focus and delivers both things sooner.

10. Collaborate don’t coordinate.

Coordination overhead takes your eye off the ball.

I often see this happening when teammates work solo in their specialty.

For work to complete, it has to pass through each team member. You have to coordinate with your teammates because everyone is working alone. Stalls in the work are inevitable. Your teammates will be busy when you need them. And you will be busy when your teammates need you.

This stop and start makes for divided focus and slow progress.

Instead, bring all the team minds together on the same problem, in the same place, at the same time.

• No waste.
• No waiting.
• No overhead.

Teamwork amplifies focus and flow.

---

Bonus: The Rest Of My Favorite Focus Amplifiers.

Here’s a little secret.

I have more than 10 go-to focus amplifiers. But a top 10 list has a limit. For the rest, you will find them in the image below of my top 19 focus go-tos (this list is constantly evolving).

I’m sure you have some of your own. Please share them in the comments.

And, please, steal mine, improve flow, and get time and energy back on your team.

Do less and focus more.

---

References

1. Drive — The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel H. Pink, 2011

---