Do You Know What To Ignore Today?

I ran across a great blog post that Peter Bregman wrote a while back on Harvard Business Review, entitled Two Lists You Should Look At Every Morning. While we often prioritize our to-do list each morning, we should also create our list of the things that we are going to ignore (the distractions, the impediments, the unimportant).

As an expansion stage venture capital firm, that also offers strategic consulting services to our portfolio, we offer a lot of coaching to management teams around prioritization and focus. As Peter notes, “The world is changing fast and if we don’t stay focused on the road ahead, resisting the distractions that, while tempting, are, well, distracting, then we increase the chances of a crash.”

We all have so much information coming at us every day, that trying to catch it all is not only impossible, but it is counterproductive in Bregman’s view. It is important to be grounded, intentional and know what is important. It is important to learn to say ‘no.’

Good advice for all of us. So, what are you going to ignore today in order to focus on what’s really important?