Priorities

So how do you establish your priorities? Do you plan a quarter in advance and then adjust accordingly, or do you allow the day to drive your focus? It is often hard to separate the urgent from the important and even more difficult to focus on what's important because urgent usually equates to crisis, which means that you did not pay attention to the important and got yourself into a jam. Every business consultant in the world talks about focus, and in a business where there are over 15,000 players in the United States alone, which is where I find myself, you have to be focused. But it is really hard because those urgent matters divert your focus and suddenly the day is lost, which is what seems to have happened to me everyday this week! Oh well. By the way, just finished reading Jeffrey Gitomer's "Little Black Book of Connections". Once again Jeffrey has created a practical guide to a very complicated subject; i.e.: networking........what it is and more importantly what it isn't......I do lots of networking and I try everyday to add to my relationship equity by being focused on giving value before I receive it. How about you? Okay, a complicated question that needs some thought before answering........but while you are thinking about it, ask yourself if you really think about accomplishing specific objectives before you attend a networking function. Do you preview the list of attendees? A night of exchanging business cards is not networking.....an evening of fierce conversations is not networking.......figuring out how to provide value to another person is networking.........serving your community is networking.........helping out at school is networking.......my Mom, who is 88 years old always told me that good things come back to you. It's advice you can take to the bank!