Making it Stick
Finding it easy to keep a focus on deadlines, maintaining concentration to follow through to a final outcome
Effort doesn't equal success. Hard work is important. But the formula of life success isn’t more effort equals more success. Don’t assume that more energy is always needed if you aren’t achieving your goals. Be prepared to rethink your strategy to come at the problem from a different direction. If things aren’t working out, know when to hold and when to fold. Don’t keep playing a game you can’t win. Don’t let your pride or obstinacy keep you at the table of a losing game. Persist, but don’t fly in the face of realities. For every anecdote about the “winner” who achieved the impossible, there are another thousand stories about individuals who wasted time in pursuit of the unachievable.
Your in box will always be full. Don’t assume every task has to be completed immediately. Many tasks can be ignored or delegated. Concentrate only the big stuff that needs your personal attention. Don’t work on a 24/7 schedule attempting to keep on personal top of each and every issue which surfaces. Manage the boundaries of your personal and work life.
Prioritise by your goals not by others’ urgency. Urgency is emergency and if you are in the emergency business, get organised to respond with immediacy. But most urgent items are only urgent because they haven’t been done when they could or should have been. Put in place the planning systems and work disciplines to avoid urgency. Urgency is disruptive (though some people seem to like it) and encourages a reactive operating style that is prone to bad judgement calls. Establish control over your life by reducing urgency wherever you can through the introduction of better systems to control and coordinate your work flow.
Aim for perfection but be content with continuous improvement. Excellence is commendable but only in the things of life that are critical. Not everything worth doing is worth doing well. Some things can be over-done. Be “good enough” for the things that are important but not fundamental to your life goals. Don’t be a perfectionist in everything. The perfectionist drive, the belief that absolutely everything has to be just so (and anything else that falls short is unacceptable) is a trajectory with massive potential for a life of disappointment and dissatisfaction. The signs of perfectionism:
- an exasperation with others’ behaviour and a frustration with their efforts
- the feeling of being let down by others and having to “pick up the pieces”
- a heightened sensitivity to any suggestion of criticism of your work
- a fear of being made to look foolish in public
- a sense that others will find you out and expose you as a failure or fraud
- thinking more about your previous failings than past successes
Accept that perfectionism is not attainable, necessary or even desirable. Ask yourself: what would happen if you achieved perfection? How would your world be different and what would improve?
Decide when to quit. Persistency, that energy to keep going in the face of setbacks and adversity, is admirable. But there may come a point when the only rational course of action is to quit and move on to more productive activities. You may be on to a “slow burn” winner in life, a project that will come good in the long-term. Alternatively you may be caught up in an out and out loser. How do you decide?
- are customers getting it? There is “no victory over customers”, so if your most progressive and forward thinking customers are hesitating, you may have a problem.
- are competitors showing interest? If you are out on a limb and no one else is looking at this idea, either you have a break-through concept, or you’re out of touch.
- do you have the capability to make it happen? Do you have the skill set, the resilience and courage to see it through to full completion? Not to think or talk about it, but to put in the hours to make it happen?
“Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.” Enjoy the journey. The positive feelings we experience are often less about the final achievement; our successes are surprisingly short-lived. Our satisfaction typically lies in the progress we make in moving closer to our aims. Focus on your end-point but ensure you take pleasure and pride at each step on the way. Look out at the “window” to enjoy the journey. It will make the arrival at your destination more rewarding and fulfilling.
Don’t become a “control freak”. Use your persistence and determination to keep pushing for results but don’t see every life activity as a task to be completed to deadline. Don’t give yourself ulcers. Recognise what is and isn’t within your personal power to influence. Do your best at those tasks within your control. But don’t make life difficult by taking on problems outside your personal control.
“It’s quicker to do it myself.” It might be in the short term. In the longer-term you will keep getting caught up in those tasks that aren’t the best use of your time and which won’t advance your goals. Master delegation:
- never sit on work; delegate it to whoever can do it cheaper and quicker than you can.
- spend quality time coaching others, explaining not just what you do, but how and why.
- establish a “buffer zone”; set a deadline that allows you to check the progress of delegated work before it becomes critical. Agree a time in the diary now.
- be specific; don’t confuse others by delegating everything at once with vague time-scales. Make it clear what you expect and when.
- send reminders; don’t nag but do communicate your expectations of agreed dates and deliverables.
- follow up; don’t allow missed deadlines to continue. Call to check what the problem is.
- focus on outcomes not process. There are a 101 reasons why delegated work may miss the deadline. You should be interested only in the outcome, not the reasons. Make a new commitment based on a new date. time-management-guide.com
Delegate the “what”, not the “how”. Accept that you need to delegate but recognise that others will want to do things their way, drawing on their own individuality and skills. Focus on “what” has to be achieved and allow others to work out the “how” based on their own distinctive strengths. Don’t micromanage each and every aspect of a project. Keep your eye on the big picture and coordinate and deploy fully the talents of others, giving them the freedom to utilise their own ingenuity.
See the big picture to manage the “law of unintended consequences.” “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it”. Don’t focus on one aspect of your life situation to develop a solution that resolves a specific problem but with consequences to create other and potentially more damaging problems. Focusing only on achieving success in one part of your life can lead to failure in other areas. Make the connections across different life activities to build a coherent view of the future.
“Planning is indispensable but plans are useless.” Don’t allow your efforts be driven by an implementation plan which has outlived its usefulness. Keep flexible to adapt your approach to changing circumstances. Remember “sunk costs”. Sunk costs represent the investment you have already made which cannot now be recovered. Don’t persist with a course of action that attempts to recover “sunk costs”. Make your decisions based on what at this moment in time will give you the best return in future.
Think “what if.” Have a fall back plan. The drive to persist is admirable. It can also result in misguided and wasted effort when attempting to implement an unworkable plan. Build contingency plans into your projects. Don’t assume failure but do know what to do if things don’t work out as you intended. Formulate “plan A” and be committed to its execution but know what “plan B” is.
Learn how to improvise. Dogged determination in pursuit of your plans is powerful. But success rarely results from a simple sequence of going from A to Z. Typically it involves the willingness to shift tactics, adapt and adjust to changing circumstances. Keep scanning the situation to work out what is and isn’t working and be alert to opportunities to try a different approach.
Is the project working for you or are you working for the project? Don’t get caught up in those plans which have gained a momentum and urgency of their own but which aren’t contributing to your personal goals. Stand back to question: what is this project really about? How is it helping me achieve my overall goals? If you struggle to find an answer, then, in all likelihood you’re tangled up in general enthusiasm for an activity which is going nowhere for you personally. Ask: where is this project headed? What is the likelihood it will contribute to my life success? What is the probability it will waste my time?
Begin “meetings” with endings. Start your meetings with a clear statement of your expectations of outcomes. Don’t allow meetings, formal and informal, become a “bun fight of competing egos” and the kind of repetitive circular argument which the idle enjoy but alienate the talented and productive. Control the agenda by outlining at the outset what needs to be achieved.
Have fun. Don’t get so caught up in world of deadlines that you lose sight of the potential to enjoy yourself in the process. Results and outcomes matter. But the process to get there matters too. Find ways of having fun on the way to your destination.