by John Paschall, President/CEO

Last month in our eTorch online newsletter, I shared with you three time management tips to help you build your better business.  Do you remember what they were?

         One Thing at a Time

         Turn on the Mute Button

         Controlling the Income Suppressor

If you want to refresh your memory on those, just take a quick peak at last month’s eTorch Report, sent on May 23.  This month I have another one for you, and it is related to another tip that we talked about in May – the Flat Biscuit Theory (you remember, the pancake-thin biscuits that “squatted to rise, but ended up being cooked in the squat.”)  As I am sure you have figured out by now, many of the most effective and helpful ideas are simple but are also related to each other.  The Flat Biscuit Theory is all about how procrastination can lead to less than stellar results – “getting cooked in the squat”.

Now, let’s talk for a moment about how to kill procrastination, the enemy of time management . . . today.  I added the word today, because as you know, all great procrastinators follow the adage, “Never do today, what you can put off until tomorrow!”   Of course, for them as for us, tomorrow always remains one day away and allows us to justify putting off actions that should have been taken weeks ago.  Many of us fall into the procrastination cycle often and the truth is, we learned it early on in life.

How many of you have experienced this scenario in your home:  It is Sunday late afternoon, say 4 or 5 p.m. and your child comes bounding into the room, and blurts out, “I need to go to the store to get some supplies, I have a project for school due tomorrow morning.”  “WHAT?”, you say, (and here comes lecture #304), “How long have you known about this project?”  “A couple of weeks, I guess.”  “So why did you wait until the last minute to tell us about it?”  “I don’t know.”  Now the whole house is in a tizzy staying up late into the night so that you can ensure your child has their project complete.  When your child said, “I don’t know” when you asked why they had waited, you know that is not true, right?  They know exactly why they waited…because they knew you would make them start working on it as soon as you found out about it and they didn’t want to.  Guess what? You and I are exactly the same.

Many of us fall into the same trap on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.  We have a task, report, or project due at some point in the future and, because it is usually one we dislike, we put off getting started.  Now, as adults, we can get really good at the justification game – “What I really like to do is get all my “ducks in a row” and then when I get started, I can really knock it out.  Now I know that I am a little behind on this project, but you just wait and see, when I focus on it, I will turn out the work.”…..Sure……We all know what happens next.  We continue to justify our inactivity until the hard deadline for the project is staring us right in the face – just like our kids with their school project.

Then what happens?  That’s right, we rush around, saying “Oh ________, (you fill in the blank), this project/report is due in three hours and I don’t have enough time!”  We stress ourselves, our co-workers, and our customers as we throw something together (not our best work) and get it in at the last minute.  All the while we promise ourselves that we will start earlier next time to avoid this…and yet we never do.  So what is the solution?  How do we get out of this cycle?

Time management experts (and that doesn’t always include me) tell us to follow the same three-step process that we give to our kids with their school projects:

         Goal Setting

         Bite Size Increments

         Start Today

Goal Setting – as soon as you get the assignment, project, report, etc., determine how long you have between right now and when the project is due.  Set your goal to finish the project BEFORE it is due, not WHEN it is due.  Set your completion goal for a day or two ahead of the deadline.  This will give you some leeway in case an emergency comes up and will also give you time to review and tweak your work before submitting it – which will then end up being your best work rather than just mediocre.

Bite Size Increments – once you determine how long you have, determine how much you have to do each day to finish by the new earlier deadline.  Break the assignment up into bite size increments (reading 10 pages a day, working on the project for 30 minutes a day, etc.). By making the increments small and committing to do them each day, or three times a week, or whatever level you can commit to, you increase the likelihood of doing it.  Many of us wait to start a project because it looks so big and complicated and time consuming.  That’s because we are looking at the “whole elephant” and trying to swallow it in one bite.  Won’t work, will it?

This concept has been used for over 100 years by UPS Drivers on a daily basis.  When they go into their truck to get a package for delivery, they are trained to find that package and then look only at the next 2-3 stops, NOT the whole truck.  If they look at the whole truck, they can easily get demoralized and start to slow down.   If they focus on delivering just one package at a time, the job seems easily accomplished – hence their good results.   Set the increments small and then force yourself, no matter what, to take those “small bites” on the assigned day at the assigned time without question.

Start Today - Most of us fall into the trap of saying “I just don’t feel motivated to do it.  When I feel motivated, I will really get started.”  Wrong.  This is based on the falsehood that action follows motivation.   Actually, action creates motivation!  Once we start the project, then we start getting motivated to continue and then we get spurred on to completion.  Act today so you can get motivated to keep going.  There is a complete circle about goal achieving that we will talk about next month.  For now, let’s just remember, ACTION creates MOTIVATION, not the other way around.

Set your goal, break it into small manageable increments, and start taking those “bites” of the project today.  This works with your child’s school projects and with your multi-faceted projects at work.  Kill the procrastination habit today and you will feel even more motivated to accomplish even greater results tomorrow.  Keep building a better you and your better business and you will be amazed at the results!

Have a great month!