“Imagine if you will…” That was the famous beginning of the first sentence that Rod Serling used in every episode of the classic television series, “The Twilight Zone.” For those of you too young to remember the series, and it was entirely shot in black & white from 1959 to 1964, each episode presented a situation with a strange, science fiction or dystopian world view, often with a moral to the story or strange twist.
Actually, it sounds like some business owners’ or would be entrepreneurs when they look down the road and see the mountain of challenges (tasks & problems) they are going to face. Imagine if you will, having to do these 100’s of tasks and solve these 100’s of problems you will face all at once. That you are looking at a movie screen and all the tasks and problems are there at once. That experience would feel overwhelming and in reality, impossible.
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Take the Assessment to Find OutNow let’s another layer to this “Imagine if you will” scenario where any mistake you make with this mountain of tasks and problem that need to be done all at once destroys your business. If you were faced with the above described situation, what would your reaction be? My guess, for may of you, the answer would be paralysis from fear or over analyzing the situation.
I am happy to report to you that this situation does not exist, Rod Serling notwithstanding. That said, there are times when it might feel that way. When you feel that way, it’s time to take a step back and look at the whole playing field – e.g. – the whole situation. There may be a lot do to, but it doesn’t all need to be done by you, it doesn’t all need to be done now, it doesn’t all need to be done at all and your business will likely be able to take the hit and keep on moving despite a mistake you might have made.
And the more perfectionistic or impatient you are, the worse it feels. And although there might be work ahead, the feelings and thoughts as described above are illusions. Simply your mind acting with fear because you’re not sure what to do.
The answer to this quandary is to do something like the following:
- Lay everything on the movie screen out in an organized way so you can see it all and make sense of it all.
- Organize them by priority from urgent and important all the way down to the not urgent and not important.
Then start organizing by:
- Can be done only by you, items to delegate, items to outsource, and items to eliminate all together.
- Get started on the most important ones only you can do.
- Delegate EFFECTIVELY to parties that will handle these tasks well (more on delegation and outsourcing effectively in a separate email – for now, just know that delegate doesn’t mean abdicate).
- If you don’t have the team to whom to delegate or outsource, start assembling one.
Last:
Get rid of time wasters or minimize the time you spend on them. Phone calls, emails and meetings are my favorite for this. Although the message in these calls, emails and meetings may be important, you can group them to beginning and end of day, beginning and end of week, combining content so you don’t have so many distractions, and make these interactions short.
Doing your tasks and handling your problems as described above will get you through most, if not all, of what you need to do. And no other ways of doing them will get more done, and you will have clarity about what to do next and on the road ahead. Fear overwhelm and paralysis will diminish greatly, and you will get more done and enjoy your business more. Try it.
