Someone once told me that good projects die two weeks at a time. My personal experience confirms this adage, and to take it one step further, I believe they start decaying by a two day interval.
How often do we wrap up a meeting and then almost immediately move onto the next task on the schedule? We take notes and reminders to follow-up with this person or get this info for another person, then we move on and say we will come back to that later. Or another scenario, we want to wait to get someone’s feedback. We need their input, guidance, or opinion. Worst case scenario we need someone's formal approval.
So, we wait, or maybe it’s that first scenario and we forget. We move onto the next task and lose the opportunity to push something forward. Progress stalls, then two days later we’re either at, or almost at, the end of the week. Good luck getting big meetings in a short timeframe, good luck getting people input, good luck wrapping anything up now that Friday is around the corner.
I made a decision a while ago to change this habit. I’ve embraced the line that there’s no better time than right now. Send the message. Ask the question. Create the slide deck or the new content. Even if you know you won’t get something finished, you can at least get it started. Better yet, the goal should be to get something far enough along that you can share it out for other people’s feedback and thoughts; that’s how well rounded and quality final deliverables are crafted on a faster timeline.
So, don’t wait until tomorrow to move something forward. Don’t stare at the screen until either your eyes cross or you magically get past writer's block. Just take the next step. Share the doc with someone else or set up the meeting so it’s at least on the calendar. The time for perfection is tomorrow. Today, it’s about making a bias toward action.
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