In our busy, information-saturated lives, the ability to control what you focus on is possibly the most powerful skill that you can develop. If you want to be more productive, successful and happy – whether it’s in business or life in general, there are two types of focus that you need to master, along with the flexibility to be able to move smoothly between these two types of focus. The two types of focus are eagle vision and mouse vision.

Eagle vision:

Eagle vision happens when you take a high level perspective, pull away from the detail and look at the big picture and the overall direction you’re headed in. This is where you need to go with your focus if you’re wanting to decide your direction or evaluate whether you’re going in the direction you want to be. Eagle vision involves focusing on WHAT you want, rather than how you’re going to make it happen.

Some great questions that’ll help you develop your eagle vision are:

• What’s my overall purpose in this role/ this project/ this relationship/ my life?
• What’s important to me?
• What results do I want?
• How will I know when I have those results?
• What are the 3 main outcomes I’m wanting?
• Why do I want these results? What will that get me? And what will that get me?

Mouse vision:

Mouse vision happens when you get right down on the ground and focus on managing the detail and the next small step. Mouse vision involves focusing on HOW you’re going to get where you want to be.

Some great questions that you can use to develop your mouse vision are:

• What could possibly go wrong or get in the way of me getting what I want?
• What action needs to be taken to get what I want?
• Who’s going to be responsible for each action step?
• When will each action step need to be completed by?
• What resources have we got, that we can leverage to get what we want?
• What resources do we need to access or develop, to get what we want?
• How will we measure the progress we’re making towards our outcome?
• How are we doing, in terms of our action plan? Are we getting closer?
• What’s the next small step I need to take to get what I want?

Take a look at the questions for eagle and mouse vision again: which sorts of questions do you tend to spend more time thinking about? Are you spending more time using eagle vision or mouse vision?

If you’re spending most of your time in eagle vision, you’ll find that you’ll improve your productivity by developing your mouse vision, which will help you to implement more of your great ideas, more efficiently. On the other hand, if you’re spending all your time in mouse vision, you’ll find that you’ll increase your productivity by developing your eagle vision, and being able to do more prioritisation and delegation, rather than getting lost in busy-ness and minutia.

Too often, the monitoring and controlling functions of a manager force managers into spending all their time in mouse vision. The result is a “blinkered” approach to their role, with increased fragmentation between departments and an inability to see the big picture and the impact that their department’s functions have on other departments. Perhaps this used to work, but in our fast-paced and complex world of work today, the ability to see the big picture has become a valued problem-solving skill. Management and leadership are no longer separate roles, and more people are recognising that leadership needs to happen at every level in the organisation. Leadership is about setting new directions and casting new visions. Leadership is eagle vision.

As a general rule, eagle vision is a more resourceful focus state. Seeing the bigger picture tends to give us perspective that reduces stress because it’s easier from the altitude of eagle vision to recognise that there are hills and valleys. But mouse vision is what enables us to take action, intervene and get stuff done, and in so doing, eliminate alot of sources of stress in our lives. Eagle and mouse vision are both crucial perspectives in creating successful life and work. The key is know when to use eagle vision and when to use mouse vision.

When to Use Eagle Vision and Mouse Vision:

If you think you might not be going in the right direction, or you might not be moving at all, then the place to start is with eagle vision, by asking yourself the “big picture” questions. Mouse vision tends to focus on being efficent, and if you haven’t spent some time in eagle vision ensuring that you’re headed in the right direction, your mouse vision will only serve to help you go in the wrong direction more efficiently. While mouse vision is about climbing the ladder as quickly as possible, eagle vision is about checking if you’re on the right ladder in the first place. So start with eagle vision by deciding what ladder/s you want to be on. Once you’ve set your direction, drop down to mouse vision to create a plan for getting where you want to be, and start implementing your plan. As you implement your plan, remember to pop back up to eagle vision regularly to check if you’re going in the right direction, and to notice the bigger picture.

When you master both these types of focus, you’ll find that you have the mental flexibility to create both visions and strategies in your life and work, enabling you to focus on doing what’s important to you – and to invest your time well by getting stuff done in the most efficient way.

Eagle Photo by Savanna Grandfather. Mouse photo by pasotraspaso.

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