Being aware of what gets in your way is the most effective way to deal with the speed bumps you encounter on the way to building a successful business.

There are many ways that people diminish their effectiveness, or allow it to be diminished by others. The cure all for each of them is simply awareness – being aware of what gets in your way and having the presence of mind to see when it’s happening, or better yet, before it happens. Then it’s simple to make a different and more productive choice. That’s really all there is to it. To be aware and to choose to do it differently.

Here’s a list of the common speed bumps:

Interruptions This is probably the biggest and what I’m really talking about are unnecessary interruptions. If there are emergencies which are extremely important, time critical decisions and there are a few key people that should be allowed to interrupt you, make sure that the emergency is real, not imagined, that the decision is critical and that the key people that you allow to interrupt really justify that diversion of your attention.

There was a study done recently of business people which showed that interruptions are the most common barriers to productivity for managers. It reported that a typical business person is interrupted once every 11 minutes and that it takes about 25 minutes for the typical business person to get back to what her or she was doing before the interruption.

Those numbers probably vary widely for different business people in different businesses, but they make a point that deserves attention. Every interruption takes time itself and you need additional time to recover from the interruption. That’s why so many business people can only get what they call their important work done after hours, or away from the office, where interruptions aren’t much of a problem.

So, what can you do about the interruption pattern in your work? You can give yourself a ‘do not disturb’ time. You can let it be known that there are certain times of the day during which you’re off limits. Although it might be a bit difficult in some businesses, you can actually turn off your phone and say, ‘for 15 minutes, I’m focusing on what I have to focus on right here.’ You can have someone act as a gatekeeper and set up rules for what kind of issues need to be brought immediately to you, and what issues can wait for an appropriate time. You can encourage people to make appointments with you when possible, instead of just interrupting you at unexpected times. So again, screening phone calls as much as possible by using your voice mail, or delegating them to someone else.

Once you see how the interruptions fill your available time, you’ll easily begin to think of ways to shift your behavior, and also shift the behavior of those around you.

False Urgency Lots of things are urgent because they have to be done quickly, or because someone is demanding that they be done. The key here is to focus not on the emergency, but on the importance of the result. The problem is that dozens and dozens of little tasks need your attention right now. Tasks that can be done quickly and they actually are the ones that grab your attention. You think instinctively rather than consciously, ‘I can get this out of the way quickly. I can get onto other things that really matter’ or ‘Let me just take care of this so John or Mary or whoever will stop pestering me.’ Before you know it, you’ve chewed up hours on low priority tasks by responding to their urgency, not their importance.

False Sense of Accomplishment Wondering why so many people get addicted to computer games? It’s because of the gratification of success. A computer game has hundreds, even thousands, of little steps and each little step is a small accomplishment and you add up accomplishment after accomplishment until you make one misstep and the game ends. Business people, especially business owners, are the ultimate success junkies because in the typical business day there are dozens and dozens of little, easy to handle tasks to be done. Each one, when it’s done, gives a small sense of accomplishment – of success. Their unconscious mind wants to have lots of success experiences in a day, or spend the whole day working, working, working for the feeling of success. They do lots of little things because they’re quick and easy to do and there’s a sense of getting it done. ‘I’ve done something, I’ve achieved something.’

All of these little successes are usually things that could, and should, be delegated because they don’t have much to do with the important results you’re after. That doesn’t mean you ignore the little tasks. You just keep them in perspective. You delegate them. You do them later, or maybe you don’t do them at all. It depends again on your priorities. You leave the time to focus on the bigger things with the bigger impact. They may take longer, but you create the time for you to be able to do those in by handing off the little things that are easy to do, but someone else should be doing.

Stay tuned next week for Part II of the Speed Bumps series.

Until next time…

P.S. Learn more about working ON your business–talk to the coach!
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