For any business owner or leader, it's too easy to fall into the trap of saying "I'll do that" to anything that comes up. But it happens. And before you know it, you're juggling more than you can manage.

This is where the greatest skill of all comes into play: Focus.

Few people have mastered the art of focus like Facebook's VP of Product Fidji Simo, who manages a team of 400+ product managers and is the guiding force behind some of the world's most used digital products (she even continued working remotely for 5 months during her pregnancy).

In a recent interview with First Round Review, Simo shared some of her biggest tips on how to focus on what matters,  prioritize your work, and stay motivated day after day:

It's not just people that lose focus

In the rush to "do it all" we lose sight of what focus is all about. That's why Simo thinks of focus as not simply about avoiding the temptation to multitask, but really understanding the why behind what you're creating and using that to make smart decisions towards how you make it.

Especially when working on massive projects and with large teams, it's important to always return to your why along the way:

"It's so easy, no matter how experienced and talented you are, to end up with 'Frankenstein products' because you're trying to achieve all the goals at once, without a clear sense of what's most important," explains Simo.

Understand your intention at all times

Focus begins with the why and then quickly moves into the how. Once you understand exactly why you're doing something, it's time to make a plan on how you'll get there. Simo does this by asking a number of questions early on in a project:

  • What is the main problem this product is solving?

  • Who are the people we are solving this problem for?

  • What is the emotion/feeling that we want our product to create or evoke?

  • Is this particular implementation aligned with the problem we're solving for?

  • Is this the product/feature most likely to successfully solve that problem?

"Being intentional is the ultimate integrity in leadership. It's stating your values and intentions clearly, then putting your money where your mouth is."

Focus doesn't mean working in a straight line

At this point it might sound like this level of focus means being incredibly prescriptive with what you're doing. But Simo says an important aspect of focus isn't to just follow your initial plan blindly, but to remember that when your situation changes, you focus should change too:

"When you're really busy--which we all are--you don't always take the time to question whether your intention is still the right one, and you don't always question whether the decisions you're making are still in line with what you set out to do."

At regular intervals, take time to ask whether what you're doing is working towards your initial intention and whether your intentions are still the right ones.

Your calendar is your most important tool for focus

Most people use their calendar as a forward-facing tool to plan what's coming. But it's also a great tool for reflection. Every three months, Simo's admin looks through her calendar and puts together a report showing:

  • The percent of time she spent on each project

  • The percent of time she spent with individual leaders versus in large meetings

  • The percent of time she spent recruiting versus managing versus building

With this data in hand, she can see if her time spent matches up with her intention, and if not, she adjusts.

For example, a couple of months ago, Simo's realized that she wasn't making as much progress on what was supposed to be her main priority--Facebook's new video destination called Watch. When she audited her calendar, she discovered that she had only been allotting an hour a week to the project, and hadn't scheduled any full-team meetings.

"All of the other things on my calendar were less important but were taking more time for legacy reasons," she says. "There were recurring meetings that didn't require my attendance anymore, meetings to make decisions on less important topics, etc."

Using the calendar not only as a forward-looking tool, but a review tool allowed her to focus on her most important work.

Break your time up into smaller chunks (and leave space for distractions)

Elon Musk famously  breaks his calendar up into 5-minute blocks. And while Simo doesn't take it to that extreme, she says questioning just how much time people need from you is an important tool for focusing.

"Many people don't check in to figure out how much time should be realistically allotted to something. They just default to 30 minutes for a small conversation and 60 minutes for a larger conversation. This contributes to calendars looking like Swiss cheese."

Instead, she sets the minimum time for meetings at 10-15 minutes, leaving the person booking it to request more if they feel they'll need it. Simo also recommends setting aside blocks of intentional buffer time in your calendar each day or week to slot in last-minute surprises. This way, you're not being naive about the distractions you're bound to face every day and are more in control of your schedule.

"I'm most focused when I set my own agenda versus when I let others set my agenda," she explains.