busyness and implementation
Your new freedom business or self powered enterprise has a lot of advantages over conventional employment. These include of course the freedom to decide what you do on any given day and the freedom to decide on the direction and purpose of the business.
Depending on your upbringing and especially if you’ve been caught up in the world of working for others for any length of time, you might already be tainted with the protestant work ethic, which professes that “the Devil makes work for idle hands”. The fire and brimstone salesmen have for centuries made us feel bad about idleness and it is this that has sparked the modern craze of busyness. Beware this illness when you start your freedom enterprise as it has the power to tie you in knots and make you doubt your worth.
“The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk. Why should the hen set all day? She can lay but one egg, and besides she will not have picked up materials for a new one. Those who work much do not work hard” Henry David Thoreau
Instead of keeping yourself busy I encourage you to focus on implementation of your ideas and plans for your business enterprise.
When I was a business adviser over 10 years ago now, I repeatedly came up against brick walls with clients. They were generally fully up for making changes to their businesses and fully appreciative of my facilitation of the process to define the projects they should be working on. However, when it came to actually doing the things that would make the biggest differences they came up with all sorts of excuses and delaying tactics. This is bad for a business adviser, because despite the positive feeling within the company, to the outside world nothing is seen to change. Inevitably a senior person asks the question: “How much value did we get out of that business adviser guy who came in recently?”
Therefore I implore you to focus on a very short list of key projects to get your enterprise up and running successfully in the early stages. Further to that, once these projects are identified and defined you need to concentrate on the actions you must take to make your vision a reality. Don’t spend a minute more getting ready to get ready, just get started.
Here’s the priority list:
- Get a customer
- Look after that customer like they are royalty (not that I agree with the concept of royalty)
- Get another customer and repeat
Next time we’ll look at a method for planning that is sure to get implemented.
Photo Credit: Cole Vassiliou via Compfight cc
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