Cleared for Takeoff: How to Decide What Gets Your Attention

Episode 71 transcript: Cleared for Takeoff: How to Decide What Gets Your Attention

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 71 of your fun and profitable online business. This is the podcast that helps you build a business that feels as good as it looks. I’m Wendy Muzzy, and I help women entrepreneurs create fun and profitable businesses using simple systems, intentional action, and a whole lot less pressure. Today, we’re talking about how to decide what gets your attention, because everything can feel important when you don’t have a decision system. In fact, I think this is one of the biggest reasons entrepreneurs feel mentally overloaded. It’s not because they’re lazy. It’s not because they’re unmotivated. And it’s definitely not because they lack ideas. It’s because they’re trying to constantly decide what should happen now, what should wait, and what they should ignore without any real framework for making those decisions. So every decision feels emotional and every opportunity feels loaded. And eventually, their attention gets pulled into 12 different directions all at the same time. So today, we’re talking about decision systems, and I’m going to share my Cleared for Takeoff program, which is a simpler way to think about your ideas, your projects, and your priorities, so you can spend less time debating with yourself about what to do and more time moving forward. All right, let’s dive in. First, I want to start by acknowledging that our attention is a limited resource. Our energy is limited, our focus is limited, and our runways are definitely limited. And that’s why deciding what gets our attention is so incredibly important. But a lot of my new clients aren’t operating with a clear decision process for moving whatever idea they want to move forward. Like everything lives in one giant mental pile. Projects, experiments, future goals, random thoughts, half-finished plans. It all blends together. And when your brain sees everything at the same level, everything feels equally important. But here’s the truth. It’s not all equally important. And this is the foundation of my Cleared for Takeoff program. Instead of creating every single idea the same, we give ideas a place to live and stages to move through based on a simple flowchart. Because the goal isn’t to do all the things. The goal is to know what deserves your attention right now so your business can be fun and profitable. Now, there’s a cost to not making a decision or delaying making a decision on what deserves your attention. Every undecided project continues taking up your mental space. Every unresolved idea creates this open loop that quietly asks for your attention. So whether or not you’re aware of it or not, by not deciding what gets your attention right now, you’re making a decision. And those open loops are expensive. They cost you focus and energy because your brain keeps checking in. What about that digital project you were thinking about? What about that freebie you were planning? What about that offer idea? What about that collaboration? Even when you’re trying to work on something completely different, these questions are still playing in the background. Now, individually, they don’t seem like a big deal. But collectively, these questions create a lot of static in your days. You open your laptop and you feel behind before you even begin. Or you feel pulled in multiple directions before you even started on anything. And then it becomes difficult to identify what actually matters because everything feels unfinished. I really think this is a big source of overwhelm in entrepreneurs. It’s not because there’s too much work to do. Oftentimes, it’s because there’s too many unresolved decisions, too many projects sitting in limbo, too many ideas that haven’t been parked, prioritized, or intentionally declined. Which means every decision you make creates a little bit of relief. Even when the answer is, not right now, I’m not even going to do this. It reduces your cognitive load. This allows you to decide what direction you want to move towards so you can actually build something long enough to learn from it. Now let’s pause here for a second and talk about what not to focus on, because this is where we can also get stuck. Sometimes we give too much attention to all the noise out there. This could look like fear-based urgency, or shiny opportunities, or comparison, or emotional pressure. It can even be imagined future outcomes. And I get it. This is what creates resistance to deciding to follow through. The best way through this is a solid decision system because it reduces this emotional negotiation we have with ourselves. With these systems in place, we don’t do what we feel like doing. Instead, we ask, is this an active project or is this parked right now? What stage is this in? Do I have the capacity for this? And these types of questions create structure around your attention. Now, I think one of the best things we can do as an entrepreneur is setting up these decision systems so you can stop making decisions from scratch every time. Because decision fatigue is a real issue. And this is where my Cleared for Takeoff system comes in. It’s based around an airport idea. Now, airports function through sequencing, not chaos. Planes wait their turn. Here, planes are your ideas. Some are parked, some are delayed, some are preparing, and some are actively taking off. The mistake most entrepreneurs make is treating every plane like it’s ready for takeoff. It isn’t. You can absolutely have current offers, future projects, someday experiments, potential collaborations, without turning all of them into active obligations right now. So instead of emotionally evaluating every idea every single time, you can create a filter. They can be as simple or as complicated as you want. Here are some examples, four of them to be exact. Number one, capacity filter. Do you realistically have the time, energy, and open runway for this right now? This is not, could I force this through and make it happen? It’s more, do I actually have the capacity? These are very different questions. Number two, alignment filter. Does this move you in the direction you’re currently heading, or is it just really interesting? Because interesting and aligned are not always the same thing. Number three, timing filter. Is this a now project, a later project, or simply an idea worth just parking for a while? This keeps an important truth at the surface. Everything does not need immediate activation. And number four, emotional filter. Am I moving this because it matters or because I’m uncomfortable with staying at the current work? If you’re honest with yourself, this question can be incredibly revealing because sometimes new ideas are actually just avoidance strategies. Maybe it’s avoidance of visibility. Maybe it’s avoidance of selling or maybe it’s avoidance of just finishing something. Now, if any of these hit too close to home, please know it’s completely normal. But you have to recognize the pattern to change the outcome. And that’s what we’re trying to do here. And this leads to your action step for today. I want you to go through your idea parking lot and sort them honestly. Not based on excitement, not based on fear, but based on what actually deserves your attention right now. We discussed four decision filters. Use one of those or make up your own, but pick one and start using it immediately. Then notice how it feels to close some loops and have a system for deciding rather than making decisions from scratch every time. And if you need help creating a decision system so you can have a clearer runway for your ideas, go check out my Clear for Takeoff program. It’s designed to help you sort your ideas, identify your priorities, and move forward intentionally. You can go find it at wendymuzzy.com/takeoff. I’ll also link to it in the show notes. Now, if you remember nothing else from today’s episode, remember this. Overwhelm is most often caused by too many unresolved decisions, and protecting your attention is one of the most strategic things you can do for your business. And if you’d like a simple decision system for your ideas so you can reduce that mental clutter and feel more confident about what serves your attention, check out my Cleared for Takeoff program at wendymuzzy.com/takeoff. All right, that’s it for today. Until next time, happy building your fun and profitable business.