It’s common knowledge that if you’re building a business or a career, you need to be thinking long-term. And we’ve all heard the cliche of comparing business, or anything, to chess. “You need to play 10, 15, 20 moves in advance. You need to see all the possibilities.” And there’s value in that, it’s true, you need to know the variables and the possible moves and what pieces are on the board.

Hustling isn’t chess, and it doesn’t move at the pace of chess.

That’s where the similarities go to die, though. If you’re an entrepreneur or you’re building a career and you’re executing at every level, you’re never (ok, rarely) making just one move at a time and then waiting on someone else. Some of you make a dozen moves before you’ve had your first cup of coffee. Accounting for all the variables for every cylinder you’re firing on can leave you scattered. This is especially true if you’re in the earlier stages of your enterprise.

I suffer from this, too. I’m the worst about it. I try to bite off as much as I can chew, and then some.

I run a lean marketing team at a tech startup in New York, so I’m often the primary executor on our marketing and growth initiatives. At any given time, I’m looking at our email marketing program, our social channels, our media buying, our PR, I’m writing copy, running split tests, optimizing conversion funnels, maintaining the blog, I’m in meetings with some of the biggest consumer brands in the world.

I’m as all over the place as you can be, but I pull it off, and I’ll tell you exactly how:

I don’t run marathons in business. I sprint.

I use sprints for growth the same way I use them as a tool I use to improve my cardio. The goal is not to win a sprint. The goal is to finish — as best as you damn well can.

For those of us in tech, the concept of a sprint is not a new one. For the uninitiated: product and engineering teams will often work for a finite period of time on a feature or product, taking it from concept to design to building to QA. Teams apply resources and bandwidth to one specific component for a short burst of time.

In doing so, they’re able to go deep on the project, collaborate, and be efficient with their time. All the other “wouldn’t this be nice” and “we should do this” and “what about this” go out the window during a sprint.

I’ve lifted this workflow, lock, stock and barrel, and applied it to my own processes. The results have been a dream.

I plan in advance what I am going to work on for 1–2 weeks at a time. During this sprint, for example, I’m focusing driving acquisition through our email lifecycle. I’m not thinking about the new kinds of content we’re going to work with. I’m not taking calls from ad platforms or agency vendors. I’m not pitching stories to the media.

Sure, I could do a bit of each of these things in one day, or in one week. But I’d be costing myself a depth of focus and attention and commitment in exchange for what? For just “getting it done now”? Not worth it to me. That’s wasting future Me’s time. Future Me is going to have to go back and bring it up to par, fix it, tweak it, do all those things I didn’t take the time to do the first time around because I was trying to execute in too many different directions.

Start doing laps, but stay on the course.

You want to launch a YouTube channel? Execute on that, just that, until you’ve posted your first video that you’re proud of. Don’t worry about setting up your other social media channels. Don’t worry about your email list. Don’t worry about your blog. Set up your YouTube channel, figure out how to upload and edit a video and how to use keywords to get found on the platform. Benchmark off other leaders and influencers in the space, see what they’re doing right and wrong, make a plan and carry it out.

But if it’s just one of 16 tabs you have open in your browser, it’s not going to get done, and you’re not going to be proud of it, I guarantee you. Good work requires focus. It requires sprinting.

Deep sprinting for productivity and efficiency.

“But AWall,” you’re thinking. “I have so many responsibilities. I have to talk to customers, I have all these channels I’m already supporting, I have maintenance work that just has to get done. I can’t afford to abandon it all and focus on just one thing for 2 weeks!”

I read you loud and clear. I had the same doubts and concerns, and that’s how I turned to the notion of deep work as explained by Cal Newton in his book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. As he puts it:

“Deep work is when you focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task,” Newton explained to Entrepreneur. “You work on it as hard as your brain is capable for an extended amount of time without any distractions.”

I schedule deep work hours for 60 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes in the afternoon. During that time, I only work on my sprint goals. I close down my email, I log off from Slack, I turn off my phone, and I will usually step away from my desk to work in a more quiet, secluded part of the office.

You have to commit to deep work. You have to inform your colleagues, reinforce the parameters for yourself, and make it a point to block the time off in your calendar.

And maybe your role is even more “on” than mine, maybe you don’t have 12–13 hours a week to commit to deep work. Set your expectations where you can meet them. Commit to 30 minutes a day, and see how that feels. See what you’re able to accomplish when you tackle just one problem for an entire week, for just 30 minutes a day.

I’d love to hear if this strategy is helpful for you. I realize that my processes can always improve and are always getting better, so let me know your thoughts or your results in the comments. I’d appreciate it!