Overcoming Shiny Object Syndrome With Chris Recinos [LNIM213]

Fighting shiny object syndrome? Feel like you are never able to get your most critical projects accomplished due to distractions? In this episode, we answer a question from my friend Chris Recinos regarding how to conquer shiny object syndrome.

Show Notes

You’re working on something; you know what you want to do and you get distracted by something else. On top of that, in the back of your mind, you’re worried about all the other stuff you’re not getting done and you just feel like, as an entrepreneur or a side hustler, you just have these ideas of things you want to do but you’re never really getting enough of that done. I’ve experienced this personally and recently I had a conversation with my friend, Chris Recinos, the CEO of Nurse Leader Network, and that discussion brought it home for me.

Every one of us, we have the same 24 hours a day, we have the same amount of time, so how are we going to decide to use it? Are you 100% sure you’re working on the right thing? Are we being intentional about how we use it so we get the outcomes that we want? Are you satisfied with the outcomes that you are getting? Do you feel good about the amount of progress that you’re making? Sounds like a lot of questions, does it? But these are the kind of questions that we should be asking ourselves to get our head right about this Shiny Object Syndrome problem.

We will break down Chris’ questions and discuss the takeaways I got from that exchange:

Right out the gate, even the most incredibly successful people who seemingly “have it all together”, the people who you’re looking up to, those people they have these issues too. Everybody goes through this. You are not alone.
Don’t try to fit everything in and decide what the most important thing is. Taking from the book, The One Thing by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan, they said: “Extraordinary results are related to how narrowly you can focus”. It’s better to do a few things that have huge effects than to suffer the side effects of doing a bunch of things all at once. Ask yourself: “If you could only do one thing, what would that thing be?”.
If you find yourself lost after that 2nd bullet, if you are unsure what that one thing would be for you, it’s probably because you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing; and for you to move forward successfully, you need to be clear on your “why”. I’ve talked about finding out your purpose and your “why” a lot and if you want to dig deeper on that I encourage you to watch this video: Finding Your Why: How To Find Your Purpose And Why It Matters.
Change your perspective. Instead of saying “I need to get better at time management”, start saying “I need to start managing outcomes”. Things take however long they’re going to take, so start managing outcomes. And if you’re thinking about hiring someone to do some of your work, one method you can use is the 4 Ds – Do, Defer (Delay), Delegate, and Delete (Drop).
Be okay with the fact that these 3 most important things are enough. Be okay with the fact that you have 75 ideas but are working on only 3 right now. And the rest of the items, create a list for them, write down the details, and every now and then look at that list.
Never buy anything until Friday. Most of the distractions that you get involve investing in a new opportunity, software, solution, or next shiny object, so put it on the list of “Things to think about on Friday”. And by the time Friday comes around, that impulse to do or buy that thing would have dissipated enough for you to make a good decision about it.

Get clear on these tactics, use them starting today to help you deal with Shiny Object Syndrome in 2021 so when you finish the year, you will feel excellent about the things you got done because you weren’t distracted.

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