How easily distracted are you and your team from pursuing key priorities?

Our reader poll today asks: How easily distracted are you and your team from pursuing key priorities?

• Not at all — we consistently stay focused on top priorities and never get distracted 12.85%
• Somewhat — we generally stay focused and on task but get distracted occasionally 60.55%
• Very — distractions tend to be more frequent and hinder focusing on priorities 21.10%
• Exceedingly — we truly struggle to focus on what’s important 5.5%

Focus, focus, focus. Look at how many unfinished projects are sitting on your desk and in front of your team members. Distraction and diffusion of effort is an execution killer. Sure, priorities change and that’s fine. Just maintain a focused priority list and drive execution on the items at the top of the list. Don’t start anything new until you’ve completed something else and resources are freed up. The constant stop/start/stop/start dynamic drains energy and causes inefficiency. It’s fine to put new ideas on the list and prioritize them as “not yet” then communicate and reinforce priorities to your team. This improved focus will actually accelerate completion of top projects which then enables you to pursue the next ideas on the list. And if something truly is a distraction and isn’t aligned with core goals and priorities, the best thing you can do is quickly say “no” and move on to your real priorities.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.