I wish I had a good answer for you. All I can really offer is commiseration, by way of saying that I have the same issue. I spread myself way too thin, trying to work on multiple projects at the same time, instead of picking on and working on it exclusively (or even near exclusively).
That said, to the extent that I have gotten any better at this over the years, I did the following:
I created a page on my personal wiki, with a "todo list". At the very top, before any of the todo items are a series of questions. Every time I look at the list, I'm reminded to ask myself those questions.
I don't have the list in front of me right this second, and I'm not sure I'd want to share the exact list anyway, as it's kinda subjective and personal. But assume it includes things like:
1. What is the single most important thing I could be doing RIGHT NOW, vis-a-vis creating revenue?
2. Whatever I'm about to do, WHY am I doing it NOW?
etc.
It helps a little bit, but not completely since so much of what I do is kept in my head and I don't consult this page all that often. But at least I get a little reminder every now and then of what I'm supposed to be focusing on, in terms of the strategy I wrote down.
Thank you, I appreciate your perspective. Sounds like you've worked on this problem yourself by working at it from a different direction, namely starting from what you want to do/why you want it and moving back towards the thing to be doing.
Sort of. I have several projects I'm working on, and in a sense I don't "know" which one to focus on. But underneath everything, I know that I ultimately want to build a company that makes money. Not that "make money" is the only thing I want to do, but it matters for $REASONS.
Anyway, given that, I can work backwards from "what action(s) are most likely to lead to somebody paying me even 1 dollar for any of this?" And if I keep that "time to first dollar" in mind as a north-star of sorts, it helps me focus. To a degree.
In reality I don't always actually know what is going to minimize "time to first dollar", and sometimes I just say "screw it" and work on what seems like the most fun. So it's a really rough sort of heuristic at best. This is probably one reason why we aren't making any money yet. But that's OK, because other goals besides "make money" include "learn cool new stuff" and "have fun."
That said, to the extent that I have gotten any better at this over the years, I did the following:
I created a page on my personal wiki, with a "todo list". At the very top, before any of the todo items are a series of questions. Every time I look at the list, I'm reminded to ask myself those questions.
I don't have the list in front of me right this second, and I'm not sure I'd want to share the exact list anyway, as it's kinda subjective and personal. But assume it includes things like:
1. What is the single most important thing I could be doing RIGHT NOW, vis-a-vis creating revenue?
2. Whatever I'm about to do, WHY am I doing it NOW?
etc.
It helps a little bit, but not completely since so much of what I do is kept in my head and I don't consult this page all that often. But at least I get a little reminder every now and then of what I'm supposed to be focusing on, in terms of the strategy I wrote down.