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Staying focused on Income Producing Activities

I don’t know about you, but I’m easily distracted. In a business like mine, digital marketing and web design, there are a LOT of moving parts. It is easy to get sucked into fine-tuning some obscure part of the business and lose sight of the money-making to-dos right in front of your nose. Income Producing Activities, or IPAs, tend to be a little more character building than other parts of your business. I think this is because we usually have a lot more emotional baggage around money and the meanings we ascribe to how much we have, we make, and we value our services/products.

Because this can be such a personal topic and everyone approaches it differently, I decided to reach out to my network and see how they stay focused on the activities that will move their business forward, financially. Here’s what they had to say:

“By doing my accounting regularly — nothing like paying bills to realize you need to focus on bringing in income!” Leslie Surel

“Make a list of the things you don’t want to do. And make sure you stick to it.” Stephanie Campanella

“I use Rescue Time to focus on productivity.” Melanie Adcock

“I read The One Thing and now block 4 hours each day to work on the 20% that will grow my biz. I keep a list of 20% items in priority order and do one at a time until done. It really works. I find myself putting a lot of tasks in the 80% category when I determine they are not priority to reach my goals.” Tammie Poppie

“I tell myself that if I focus for 50 minutes, I can then take a 10 minute break for FB or snacks or whatever. Helps me!” Kate Smith

“Habit. Make income gaining activities a habit. Every day I reach out to one person who can help me grow. Once that became second nature I added more…” Victor Ramirez

“Having accountability partners where you must show up with what you said you were going to have done finished. And making the plan for what is going to need be done before the next check in. And make the check ins close together so there is not a lot of time between where nothing gets done fast.” Mary Beth Tedrick

“I like to eat and feed my kids. So without staying Focused on building my business I can’t Feed them, put them through College Debit Free. My goal with this business is to leave a business behind for my kids to run and keep growing.” Jamie Hill

*April’s note: I’m with you on this one, Jamie. My son is my driving force. Everything I do in my business is with his future in mind.

“Before I do anything, I ask myself whether it will make me money. If not, I ask myself whether there is something else I still need to do that will make me money. I don’t always manage this, but definitely helps.” Nick Gulic

“1. Tracking my time. I hate it and I’m bad at it, but it’s powerful. 2. My Bullet Journal is amazingly useful. I constantly brain-dump into it. 3. Medication.” Trish Cupra

*April’s note: I have medication I use when the anxiety of conquering the world gets to be a little much. It can definitely help with refocus.

“DEADLINES.” Mor Cohen

Well, I think Mor drops the mic on this one, for me. Deadlines keep me accountable on projects and also on income-goals. I hope you get some inspiration on how to keep yourself motivated over the coming weeks as we get ready for the New Year’s push. What are some other ways you stay focused on IPAs? Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments.