In sales, distractions are everywhere—emails, meetings, client situations to address, tech issues, and endless to-do lists. The best sales professionals know that success comes from disciplined focus. Here are three ways to sharpen your attention and maximize your results.
1. Prioritize Planning and Plan To Prioritize
“I’m too busy to have time to plan” seems like a reasonable excuse. However, having an effective (and efficient) planning process gives you a greater sense of control, and allows you to prioritize the highest value activities. I take 30 minutes prior to each month to get clear on the overall goals for that month, I take 15 minutes over the weekend to review and game plan the upcoming week, and I take 10 minutes each night to look at the next two days and identify what I must do, and what I shouldn’t do (yet or ever).
2. Time Block Your Day Realistically
Set dedicated time slots for prospecting, client calls, and strategizing. When you protect your time, you protect your productivity. It’s not just important to know your key activities and tasks, but also when it the best time for what tasks. You don’t always control it, but to the extent you can, it will lead you greater productivity. Daniel Pink writes about this in his book, “When”, and there are lots of studies around “flow” that support this idea.
3. Minimize Distractions
Context switching is costly! Every time you take your mind off the task at hand, you’ve wasted time when you come back to that. Whether you use tools like inbox pausers or pomodoro timers, or manually turn off notifications and close unnecessary tabs,or physically put your phone in another room - fewer distractions leads to greater sales success.
Success in sales isn’t just about working harder—it’s about working smarter with focused effort. Master these habits, and your results will follow.
In our sales training work, we’re seeing an increased demand from clients around time management and focus in addition to sales process and sales skills.
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