The 5 Elements of Visionary Blogging - Part 2: Focus

March 27th, 2008 by Easton Ellsworth

Welcome to Part 2 of a 5-part series on the elements of the Visionary Blogging method, which will help you improve yourself as a blogger and make your blog better faster.

In this article, we’ll focus on … focus. I’ll tell you what focus is, why you must have focus in order to become a visionary blogger, and how to sharpen your blogging focus.
The 5 Elements of Visionary Blogging

• Part 1: Awareness
• Part 2: Focus
• Part 3: Discernment
• Part 4: Imagination
• Part 5: Diligence

What is Focus?

Focus is the ability to look. It requires awareness (the ability to see) plus concentrated attention.

For example, you’re aware of many things right now - the temperature of the air around you, the movement of objects in your peripheral vision, the need to call back that one guy about the thing, etc. - but your focus is on these typed words. (I hope.)

Focus brings exactness and clarity to otherwise blurry blogging.

What do you look at when you are blogging? What commands your attention and what do you ignore?

How Focus Affects Blogger and Blog Improvement

Without focus, wisdom is lost in knowledge and knowledge is lost in information. You see much but look at little. The Web becomes a trap instead of a treasure chest.

Focus enables you to dredge oceans of information, capture oysters of knowledge and extract pearls of wisdom in spite of danger, distraction or fatigue.

Focus aids meta-improvement by training your mind’s eye on the aspects of your blog or blogging that matter most to your success. It acts as a mental filter, whetting your appetite for superb blogging tips and screening out the irrelevant, the unimportant and the mediocre.

No wonder focus seems to contain magical power. Nothing else improves poor vision so quickly or drastically.

How to Sharpen Your Focus for Faster Blogger Self-Improvement

Here are 3 simple yet challenging exercises you can do to hone your focus and make yourself a better blogger. Try these or create your own assignments.

1. For one day, keep a detailed log of your blog-related activities and their purposes. This can be a list on paper or in an electronic document. Be as thorough as possible in noting what you do, for how long and why. Afterwards, evaluate your level of focus during the day. When was it strong? When was it weak? What factors influenced your ability to focus? What will you do to focus better tomorrow?

2. For 5 minutes, write all the things you can think of that you would love to accomplish through your blogging efforts. Then take 5-10 minutes to sort the accomplishments on your list in order of priority. What would be the most important thing you could accomplish? The next most important thing? The least important thing?

3. Take a few minutes to create a list of activities that, while enjoyable, tend to prevent you from reaching your blogging goals. For each activity, decide how to make sure you do not waste any time on it. For example, Twitter can be a valuable networking and communication tool that adds to the success of a blog. But if you sometimes find yourself wandering too far down Twitterpated Lane and forsaking more urgent and important activities, consider setting a few personal rules to maximize your use of Twitter. e.g. no Twitter until I have cleared out my email inbox each day; no more than 30 minutes on Twitter; I will shut off Twitter when I’m not at work on blog-related things; etc.

Your homework this time is to do one or more of the above exercises within 2 days of the time you read this article and tell me how it went in a comment below. I will do it too. Let’s help each other improve our blogging focus.

What’s Next?

In Part 3, we’ll discuss the third element of visionary blogging: discernment, or the ability to evaluate.

If You Just Want Some Personal Blogging Help

Ask me for free blog help at any time. I’ll come running.

What Do You Think?

How important is focus to blogging success? Can you think of a time when your level of focus influenced your performance? What are the biggest enemies of focus for a blogger? I would love to hear what you think about these questions or anything else that we’ve covered in this brief article.

Photo: Eye For Detail by d70focus

Subscribe to Visionary Blogging to get free updates.