Ask my staff and on 99 out of 100 hundred days they would tell you that my office needs a good sort out. I admit that it could to with a tidy up from time to time, but strangely I know where everything is and can lay my hands on anything I need in seconds. Oddly, this is something I can’t do if papers are neatly filed away. But yes, I do admit, there are occasions when even I would accept that my office needs to be tidied. You really can’t work effectively if things are in a real mess.
But enough about my office, I want to talk about yours.
My question is more by way of example than really wanting to know if you tidied up your office today. You see all too many business people spend far too much time putting off what really would make a difference to their business in order to do, well almost anything else. Tidy the office, create a new filing system, design a new spreadsheet for the petty cash, make a long list of people to call. You know the type of thing I mean. We’ve all done it. We have all convinced ourselves that these things are really vital and will make a difference to our lives. And, of course they will, but not in the way we actually want.
Why do we do it? Well, the things that are going to have the biggest effect on our success are hard, and sometimes even unpleasant. So we put these difficult things off and do other ‘important’ things like tidying the office instead.
So, if your business isn’t moving in the direction you want, as fast as you would like, be tough on yourself and list the ‘important’ jobs you have done in the past few days, against the really important jobs that need to be done to move your business forward.
Actually picking up the phone today and calling even a few people will have a much more dramatic effect on your business than having a long list of people you could call another day.
