Fewer beach vibes, more rock and roll?
In business as in life, it can be easy to become distracted by the small things. You know, the everyday, niggling tasks that each seem to take much more of your time than you intend. Cumulatively, these tasks can quickly mount up to several hours in a month – time that could actually be really useful to have to dedicate to the bigger, more important things.
Does this sound familiar? Did you get to the end of last year and wonder what you had actually managed to achieve in your business? It’s unlikely that you will remember the time you filed your expenses in date order, as fun as that was. But you might look back with pride on winning a big new client.
A useful way to think of it is: rock, pebbles, sand. If you focus on sand too much then there is no room in life for the pebbles and rocks! Yet somehow, it is the sand that we automatically defer to – and at the expense of rocks and pebbles.
So how can you aim for fewer beach vibes and more rock and roll? Here are some tips…
Face up to it
Sometimes, doing the small things is simply an avoidance technique. We know that we have bigger, more important things to do, but it is somehow much easier to approach the smaller tasks. If you don’t do the bigger things first, you will only have to do them later so it’s better to tackle them head on. Try to break the bigger things down into smaller, more manageable chunks. That way, you will feel like you’re getting somewhere and will get the same feeling of ticking things off the list as you get with smaller tasks.
Check yourself
We convince ourselves that ‘it will only take five minutes’ to do something, when in reality it is almost always much more time consuming. Be realistic and be sure to question yourself each time you start a task – is this really the best use of your time?
Seek support
In order to give yourself the headspace to focus on the bigger business tasks, you may need to put some support in place to help out with the smaller things. Outsourcing services such as payroll, accounts, marketing, HR, admin etc can seem like an unnecessary expense, but the likelihood is that not only will you feel less encumbered by these jobs, and therefore more free to address more important matters, they will probably also be completed to a higher standard. A win-win all round.
As a business leader, creating discipline to focus on the bigger things and put systems in place to oversee the rest is difficult to do. This is one of the things our clients really value about having Agenda on board – we’re able to not only help lay the groundwork, we will also keep you in check as the year progresses. For more information on how our business consultancy services can help you be more ‘rock and roll’, get in touch.
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