Regaining Your Focus After Two Months of “Blursday”

A couple weeks ago, and a full month and a half into stay at home orders, my friend declared every day “Blursday.” He’s a guy with a normal job and a formerly normal life who, like all of us, is having a hard time keeping the days straight.

The past two months have been a struggle for all of us. I know now why Grandpa Mason had to look at the newspaper to verify the current day, date, and year!

Here’s the thing: the country is starting to open up. Assuming your health is fine (and I hope it is) and assuming your business or employer survived the economic shutdown (and I hope it did!), you need to regain your focus. Your professional self requires it.

Here’s where to apply your focus to successfully rebound from the shutdown:

Focus On Your Health

Almost none of us contracted the Coronavirus. Yay us! But that doesn’t mean we’re healthy. Scroll around social media and it’s obvious — more than a few of us lack discipline while working from home. Spring has sprung, so get up and get moving. Nothing sharpens the mind like brisk exercise. It’s good for creativity too.

Focus On Relationships

Opportunities arise from other people. It’s not a matter of what or who you know, it’s who you’ve maintained a respectful and reciprocal professional relationship with over the years.

Nurture those relationships that have suffered over the last two months. Face it, there are some things you just can’t accomplish on a Zoom happy hour or via social media. When you focus on maintaining positive relationships, your outlook remains positive. That’s important right now!

Focus On What You Can Control

With so much uncertainty — When will things reopen? When will I be allowed to get a haircut? — it’s normal to be frazzled. Fight through the frazzle by focusing on outcomes you can control. You can manage your budget, you can pick up the phone and do outreach, you can devote time to self improvement, and you can apply energy to rethinking your business. Do so and stop festering.

Focus On Completion

If you’re like me, you headed into lockdown grudgingly, but you told yourself, “At least I’ll be able to get X,Y, and Z done.” Two months later, you’ve been busy, although you’re not exactly sure doing what, and X, Y, and Z are still sitting there uncompleted. This is the reason formerly productive retirees seem to never get anything accomplished, even with all the time in the world.

I’ve taken to imposing deadlines on myself. I recommend you do the same. A real, firm, you won’t allow yourself wiggle room on it, deadline.

Focus On The Future

We’ll get through this. Even the Great Depression eventually ended. Do yourself a favor and focus on where you’re going versus what might have been. My business experienced a severe setback beginning Friday, March 13th. While I will never forget that day, I won’t it distract from my focus on future opportunities. I encourage you to do the same.

From Blursday Forward

It’s been a rough couple months — emotionally, professionally, and for many of us, financially. But now is the time to regain your focus. There’s optimism in the air. Have you noticed the days are starting to feel different from one another? It’s no longer Blursday. Thank goodness!

Damian Mason is a businessman with a farm boy work ethic who struggles with focus because he was ADHD long before it was a trendy diagnosis. For speaking inquiries, to purchase his books, or connect with him online visit www.damianmason.com