How to detox your business from 3 deadly P’s
Last week I addressed the danger in falling prey to three toxic business behaviors: perfectionism, (over)planning, and procrastination.
But it’s not enough to be aware of them; you have to take action against them if you want your business to thrive. Here’s how.
Acknowledge that “good” is often good enough.
You’ve probably seen examples of workmanship which you considered shoddy, but which were deemed “good enough” by the worker. This type of “good enough” has no place in a high-quality business, since it typically indicates ineptitude, laziness, or a willingness to cut corners.
But it’s not only possible for an offering to be acceptably good enough – it’s smart.
Putting out good-quality work makes sense for several reasons:
- it keeps you from being paralyzed by the quest for perfection
- it enables you to keep moving forward instead of stalling, and staying in motion is inevitably easier than getting in motion
- it provides priceless feedback from your market, which you can then use to improve version 2.0
Accept iterations as a part of normal business life.
How often have you had something work out just right the very first time you tried it?
If you’re like the majority of people, the answer is “not very often”.
Are your habits nurturing your business or poisoning it?
The fact is, there will always be room for improvement in any activity you undertake, whether professional or personal. The faster you accept this, the easier it is to put your work out into the world, knowing that you’ll have a chance to make it better in its next iteration.
Do. It. Now.
You have two real choices when faced with an unpleasant, uncomfortable, or tedious-but-necessary task: ignore it or grit your teeth and jump on it right away.
In my experience, it’s far more common for anticipation to be worse than actual experience. (One obvious exception is prepping for a colonoscopy; that’s always as bad as you expect it to be. Just sayin’.)
So if procrastination is part of your daily routine, experiment with these tools to break that habit and replace it with a “do it now” approach.
- remember that you can handle pretty much anything for 15 minutes, so schedule this “take care of obnoxious tasks” time in your calendar every day, and enlist a no-nonsense friend or associate to hold you accountable
- before tackling the task, dwell on the relief, accomplishment, and pride you’ll feel when it’s done; use this as a lure to forge ahead
- if you feel even the slightest impulse to tackle an ignored task outside of your scheduled time, act on it
- build in rewards for having cleared some challenging task off your To Do list (for me, the Brownie Cascade at the local ice cream shop works wonders)
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What techniques have you found to help when dealing with perfectionism, (over)planning, and procrastination? Share your successes in the Comments section below – and remember to share this with any of your buddies who are struggling with these counterproductive habits.
(BTW, thanks to Practical Cures for posting the detox image on Flickr.)
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