Wendy O’Donovan Phillips, CEO of Big Buzz, was recently featured under in 25 Inspiring Quotes and Business Tips from Successful Female Entrepreneurs under “How to Become Successful in Your Business’s Day to Day Operations.”

Read an excerpt of the piece here:

Wendy O’Donovan started as a freelance healthcare marketing writer in 2007 with her dentist as her first client. Two years later, she had 10 clients and three employees. Through consistency and hard work, what once was a one-woman team is now a million dollar agency serving a diverse range of healthcare companies.

Mind the Distractions
Like everyone who works online, O’Donovan was often distracted by a lot of things, especially exciting ‘new projects’ and ‘ideas’ that she would then pass on to her small business management team to execute.

She recalls, “I once gave my team six initiatives to focus on for us to accomplish our goals. I emphasized that no matter what happens, this is what they should focus on.”

A week later, she told her team that she wants to write a book.

“This is going to be fun! We can each write a chapter,” she said to get her team on board. This book wasn’t one of her initiatives and it’s not even on the business’s annual plan.

While the book isn’t connected to her plan, it might be reasoned away as a good marketing strategy. But O’Donovan also fell prey to other distractions, such as make-up and clothes—pretty distractions that made her morning prep time unnecessarily longer.

To free up her mind for what matters most, she had to learn how to let go of distractions. To save time in the morning, she only wears three items of make up each day. She also has a self-imposed uniform of a blouse and blazer combo that she pairs with the same pants.

As for random ideas that catch her attention, O’Donovan does her best to let go of these exciting but irrelevant business tips and projects. She keeps herself focused on what’s important. You can view the full list of 25 here.