For a week, I knew I wanted to send a proposal to a new client
for work in the New Year. Whenever I thought about this presentation (a
60-minute evening presentation to a group of executives from Los Angeles) my
thinking was, “This is going to be a hard one.”
Now, I know I know better, but sometimes that still is not
enough! I have to find ways to get past the gap between knowing and doing.
(Whenever I’m in London, I am always reminded of this each time I board the
Underground: Mind The Gap is painted on the cement!)
The trick I have used for many, many years now-a-days is
more than “just doing it.” I know a lot of people say they get through or
around procrastination through such a methodology. What I’ve found is that
“just doing it” works when there is a serious time crunch. At the last minute,
things MUST be done.
What, however, does someone do when they are ahead of
schedule, have plenty of time, and are still procrastinating? My cure, start
from the end!
I have a mission, before I am done on the planet, to take
the “I-do-not-have-enough-time” excuse out of our everyday vocabulary. To
replace it, I hope people will say, “I am choosing to start small.”
Make the hard work easy, stop working hard, and get going.
Oh, by the way, in case your interested I was able to get
the proposal done by starting with the three things people would walk away with
as a result of attending the presentation. Here they are:
- Technology savvy and proficiency is non-negotiable. I will
share some things you know you need to know, and you don’t know you don’t know
to make it easier to get your work done faster and at a higher level of quality
with the technology you have.
- Thinking about work is different than working on that
thinking. I will provide very practical AND tactical ways to separate the
THINKING you do about your work from the actual time and focus you put on DOING
something about that work.
- It is more than just time management. All the time in the
world will not get something done. You have to sit down, reduce distractions,
eliminate interruptions, and maximize your tools, systems and methodologies for
managing your workflow. I will share some of the very tactics I use with my
executive clients who need to get more done, with less. (*Less time, less
focus, fewer resources, and not as much money!)