Business Book Review: Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt

Focus is now one of the most valuable commodities in the workplace. Hyatt will have you questioning how much focus you’re giving your focus.

My Rating: ★★★★

Length: 256 pages

Publisher: Baker Books

Released: 2019

Key Takeaways for Personal Branding

Productivity expert Michael Hyatt delivers another must-have manual for the modern-day professional. In a world where information is now abundantly available, attention is scarce. Free to Focus says:

“Focus becomes one of the most valuable commodities in the workplace.”

“Total time lost per day for office workers is three hours or more—as many as six. Let’s say you work 250 days a year (365 days, less weekends and two weeks of vacation). That’s between 750 and 1,500 hours of lost time every year.”

The Free to Focus productivity system proposes three steps:

• Stop

• Cut

• Act

The focus is not on doing more things, but on doing the right things. Achieving more by doing less.

Your Zones of Productivity

Reminiscent of Gay Hendricks’ The Big Leap and his popular ‘zone of genius’, Hyatt proposes his own four zones of productivity:

•Zone 4: The Drudgery Zone -Tasks in which you have no passion and no proficiency.

•Zone 3: The Disinterest Zone - Tasks that you’re proficient in, but aren’t passionate about.

•Zone 2: The Distraction Zone - Things you’re passionate about, but have little proficiency for.

•Zone 1: The Zone of Desire - Your passion and proficiency intersect. You unleash your unique gifts and abilities to make the most significant contribution to your business, family and community.

While not on his matrix, there is also a fifth zone  - The Development Zone. This is where you might be high proficiency/low passion or high passion/low proficiency. But, you’re building the passion or building the proficiency.

The key is spending as much time in your zone of desire as possible and leaving the rest to others for whom the task lies in their zone of desire.

Hobbies of Highly Effective People

Refreshingly for his industry, Hyatt looks outside of the scope of your work for activities that might affect it:

“Amazing things happen when we stop. We create space to formulate, to get a clear picture of where we want to go and what we want our lives to become.”

We all know about the habits of highly successful people, but what about their hobbies? As psychiatrist Stuart Brown says, “Work does not work without play.”

All the World’s a Stage

The holistic view of your life is beautifully captured in Hyatt’s three stages. Like an actor, consider:

•Front stage: Where the action happens. The tasks for which you’re hired and paid.

•Back stage: Backstage work enables you to step out onto the front stage. It’s all the work that goes into your performance to produce a good show. It takes backstage time to prepare for front-stage work.

•Off stage: Time when you’re not working. When you’re focused on friends, family, relaxation and rejuvenation.

Not only does Hyatt stress the importance of all stages, but he suggests scheduling and batching time for all. And further proposes establishing themes for these blocks of time.

Favourite Quotes

The important question is not, Can I do this job faster, easier, and cheaper? It’s, Should I be doing this job at all?

Productivity is not about getting more things done; it’s about getting the right things done…achieve more by doing less.

At its heart, delegation means focusing primarily on the work only you can do by transferring everything else to others who are more passionate about the work or proficient in the tasks. But let’s be frank: sometimes this is hard for high-achievers. Especially if you’re cursed with being halfway decent at wearing all the hats in your business. I say “cursed” because it’s not a compliment. Would you ever knowingly hire someone only halfway decent? If you insist on doing jobs for which you lack passion and proficiency, congratulations: you win the trophy for worst hiring manager ever.

Just because you can wear all the hats in the business doesn’t mean they all fit.

As Hyatt does best, he makes what should be obvious, yet so often ignored, crystal clear using thought-provoking analogies. Ones so poignant, you’ll never forget them. Like remembering, all the world’s a stage, and you’re merely a player with entrances and exits in your many roles of life.    

Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt:  Available on Amazon.