A client of mine from Pennsylvania said to me the other day, “I’ve gotta stop trying to drink from the firehose.” What a visual!

Are you one of those business professionals who tends to try and fill up fast on the latest and greatest marketing ideas, sales campaigns, lead generation tools, script tips, seminar ideas, etc., etc.? Yep…me, too.

What I’ve found to be a very effective exercise for slowing the flood to a manageable stream is to revisit one’s business goals.

Once refocused on your end vision, you can then gain clary around exactly which two or three innovative ideas/gadgets/systems are really going to fit into your current capacity, budget and business vision. 

Next step is to unsubscribe to anything this is pulling your attention and efforts away from your primary business goals. Ask yourself, ‘Is it really necessary to have three of the top sales gurus in the country sending you weekly email blasts?’ And, don’t forget to turn off your favorite on-line malls like Zappos.com, Borders.com and Amazon.com. Ouch! I know it hurts. But, too many sales campaign email blasts just clogs up your inbox and your brain space.

Third step is to move all of those great ideas that you’ve scribbled down on post-it notes, saved word docs, links to interesting websites, emails and pod cast links into a, “Someday Maybe” task in Outlook. You can then peruse this single holding zone of brilliant ideas after you have fully implemented your primary business goals.

And, lastly, recommit to your calendar. Scheduling your week in advance is a habit, that once adopted, will GREATLY diminish wasted time on low pay-off activities, as well as, minimizing the old, bad habit of drinking from the firehose.

To drink or not to drink from the firehose is a choice we make as soon as we fire-up our computers in the morning. Here’s a quote to recall as your laptop is leaping to life for the day…

95% of the people go 95% of the way and get 5% of what’s available. Winners go 100% of the way and get 95% of what’s available. Odd’s are if you take it to completion you stand a better chance of success.