What Gives? Treated Too Loosely?

There Is No Magic, You Get Only 24 Hours Each Day.

It is a common mistake.  We do it at home.  We do it at work.  We do it without giving it any serious thought.  We treat this process way too loosely.  As a result, we leave much of what we need to be doing, undone.  Our minds are too ambitious.  Our hopes are running the extra mile.  What is it?  It is the act of trying to add something new to our already busy schedule.

We get a brilliant idea and we think, let's do it.  It sounds like a good idea.  We like the idea so much we decide we should do it.  So we start doing the new idea.  We get started and soon discover we do not have enough time to do a good job with the idea.  Soon we discover we do not have the right kind of time chips set aside to do the new project idea very well.  In order to get the new idea done, we discover we need to rush it a little bit.  What gives with this?  We first envisioned a great result when the idea originally surfaced.  However, we may need to compromise with a second rate result because we do not have enough time to do the correct kind of work the idea requires.  What gives with this?  Now we must treat the results more loosely.  We need to accept second rate stuff.

I suppose it is O.K. to lower the standard of a great idea if you are cooking hot dogs for dinner with a new twist of creative cooking.  If the creative idea does not work out properly, it is just hot dogs.  Compromise is O.K. in this case.  However, what if the idea is more serious.  What if the idea centers around developing a new service package to your business model.  It sounded like a great idea when you first developed it in your mind of thoughts.  After some discussion, it still sounds like a good idea.  So you begin setting it into place.  You start working it out and developing the process to include it into your current business process.  You discover you did not allot enough time to do the new idea correctly.  Do you compromise to get it done?  Do you want your new idea for an added service to become second rate?  What gives with that?  Does the idea of getting it done become more important than doing it right?  What gives with that?

Do not treat your current schedule too loosely.  You do not have enough time to take on a new project.  Face it.  Your schedule is already full.  You fill your daily schedule with a lot of things.  It is full of things you are trying to get done.  When you come up with a new idea, think about how you will need to re-arrange what you are currently doing.  Something has to go away in order to add new time chips to the new idea.  Something has to give.  Face it.  The new idea will need to consume some 'already-spoken-for' time chips.  If you do not face this reality you may be treating the new idea too loosely.  If so, it may become a high probability that it will become a candidate for presenting second rate work.  Many new ideas in your business path are very much like this.  Most of them fail, also.  What gives with this?  You may be treating them too loosely.

Great ideas need great design and great patterns of work completion.  Otherwise, they end up second rate work and your business does not need another second rate set of policies to practice.  It already has too many of those happening right now.  What gives with this?  Are we treating our business affairs too loosely?  Maybe.

You Can't Pretend Your Way To Success.

New ideas are a necessary part of business leadership.  Many times they are the reason why your business model leads the competition.  New ideas are a welcomed process for performing healthy business operations.  New ideas need to happen.  New ideas revive the souls of your staff and provide the depth to the flavor of why your business leads the way.  However, if you butcher the new ideas by doing a poor job of introducing them, your employees and customers will notice the 'hack job' immediately and become less enthused for the results the idea produced.  Since that is the case, why do a 'hack job' on the new idea?  Hacking up the work done on presenting a new business idea sounds like a great waste of time.  It sounds like a waste of time because it is.  A 'hack job' can kill a great idea.  Unfortunately, we do this kind of stuff all of the time.  We 'hack' a job to hurry up and get it done because we did not figure on it taking so long to properly produce.  We get impatient and discover how we do not have enough time in our current busy schedules to give the new idea enough proper time to mature correctly.  So we loosen our standards and hack it to completion.

Sometimes we do not even give the new idea enough time to 'hack it' to completion.  Sometimes we leave the new idea undone.  We do not finish it.  We are good at this process. Some of us do this way too much.  We come up with a good idea.  We think we need to do it.  We like what we envision in how it will work well for our business model.  We cannot wait to get started on it.  We start developing the new idea.  We get right into the middle of it and discover how much time it will truly take to do it well so we begin to compromise the work in order to get it done.  We begin 'hacking' it apart to get it done.  It looks and works second rate but at least it is done.  Sound familiar?

Why would anyone do this to their business model?  What gives with this?

When I was young I remember my father telling me that if I was going to do something, do it well.  He would say, "Do not choose to do something half-fast."  In another set of words, do not try to get something done too fast.  Add some patience to your projects.  Make sure your new ideas have enough time chips allotted to provide them a proper chance to see a properly completed end.  Make sure you know what you are willing to give up while you work to introduce the new ideas.  Something in your current time chips needs to be sacrificed.  Making time for the new idea to become developed will squeeze out other things you were doing. Something has to give.  We will not be allowed 28 hours per day when you add a new idea to your work schedule.  You will get the same 24 hours you had yesterday.  You will have the same habits you had yesterday.  You will have the same responsibilities you had yesterday.  You will have the same demands, the same duties and the same requirements you had yesterday.  Now you will be faced with deciding how you will squeeze in the work for the new idea, too.

Do not approach this set of truths loosely.  You will get started on the new idea and soon discover you do not have enough time to do the project correctly.  You will compromise and 'hack it' up.  Learn how to add patience to your new ideas and plan well in advance to make them happen.  Do not approach a new idea that has a tight time limit.  You will find the pressure, the compromised work and the poor results not worth the trek.  If you are going to do something, do it well.  Don't do something new just to check it off of your 'want-to-do' list.  It will only be able to satisfy your imagination if it is done incorrectly.  Since your imagination is the only thing that benefits from the butchered process, try not doing the project in the first place and imagine you did.  What is the difference?  Think about this stuff before you jump on a great idea.

Keep in mind, all great ideas are worth pursuing.  Not all great ideas are good ones to do, however.  Some are just not feasible to approach right now.  You may not have the proper time chips set aside to make them happen correctly.  It is just fine to skip a great idea if you do not have the proper time chips available to tackle that task.  A butchered idea will serve no real good to the outcomes you desire in the results your business model produces.  Choose your great ideas carefully.  Make sure you allow enough time chips to make the great idea happen correctly.  Allow enough patience to enter into the project of work.  Let the great idea mature.  Do it well.  Figure out what gives.  Something has to go when you do the work for the new idea.  Figure that kind of stuff out first, before you take on a new idea.

Be honest with the time chips you do not have.  Work new patterns and new respect for the habits you have in place.  Then do the new ideas.  They turn out much better when you add patience, the proper time chips for doing the job correctly and when you respect the truth in how all of this works.  If respected properly great ideas turn out just as they were envisioned, great ideas.

Until next time...