I read a book earlier this year that was very helpful to me in many ways. The book, by Greg McKeown, is called Essentialism. I think I like the subtitle even more: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

One of the things I’ll be pressing my clients on in meetings this year to focus, focus on essential tasks that will move them in the direction of their most important goals and objectives.

We are all in different places. Some have just finished paying off their home and paying for kids’ college and need to focus on a last push to invest before retirement. Others find themselves in the middle of kids’ sports, a growing debt load, and college looming. They need clarity and possibly a new commitment to move them in a new direction.

I’m meeting more and more business owners and association leaders today who are asking good questions about fiduciary risk and how to quantify and reduce it. Wherever you are and whatever your particular situation may be, let me give you a sketch of McKeown’s teaching about focus. He steals it from the CEO of LinkedIN. It’s a helpful little acronym:

Fewer things done better

o

Communicating, having the right information in front of the right people at the right time.

u

Speed and quality of decisions

A key component of this is that we all need to be able to say no before we can say yes. So what things do you need to learn to say no to?

Let me know how I can help.