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.

Double and Triple Handling This is really common. You look at a letter or bill that has come in and you don’t know quite what to do with it right now. It might involve a telephone call that you have to do, but you don’t want to do it right now so you put it aside to look at later. Later on you pick it up again and take a minute to remind yourself what it’s about. You put it in your pending box and still later on, you pick it up again and remind yourself again what it’s about and finally you do something about it. So each time that you put it down, or look at it and don’t do whatever it is and decide to look at it later, you’ve interrupted yourself. You’ve done the same thing three times and you still haven’t done anything about it. Eventually you’ll deal with it. Either you’ll make a decision, delegate it to someone else, decide it needs no attention, or write a response. Couldn’t you have done that the first time you picked it up? Couldn’t you have avoided having to remind yourself about it each time you picked it up? Couldn’t you have made the pending pile shorter by one letter, or ten letters, or three bills and a bank statement – all those routine queries?

The point is that double and triple handling of little tasks is a waste. It doesn’t waste time. Time is spending itself no matter what you do with it. It wastes something more important than that. It wastes your attention and effort. Now maybe it’s only 10 or 20 seconds each time. Who cares about a few seconds until you multiply them by days, weeks, years – you’re not wasting time. You’re wasting you. So wherever possible, handle something only once. Handle it, or hand it out to someone else.

Procrastination A lot of people think that procrastination is avoiding something because there’s something unpleasant about it, work you hate to do, tense situation with someone else, conflict, or an overwhelming job that’s too big to tackle just yet. This is one kind of procrastination – the avoidance kind. The cure for this kind of procrastination is two things. They’re both simple, but they’re not always easy.

The first, as with all these productivity speed bumps, the thing is awareness. Be aware of it. You have to learn to be alert to your behavior and recognize procrastination for what it is – avoiding something unpleasant.

The second goes back to results again. What’s worse? The pain of whatever you’re avoiding, or the pain and other real consequences of letting the situation persist and not getting the results that you need, that you’re avoiding because of the unpleasantness.

The other kind of procrastination happens not because you put something off until later, but because you want to get smaller, less important things out of the way so you can put your attention on the big things. But the small things keep piling up and eventually the need to do the big things builds up until you’ve just got to do it. When that happens, you’re under pressure and you haven’t left enough time to do it as well as you should. What we’re really talking about here is false urgency. It’s just a matter of priorities.

Comfort Zones Do you find yourself doing more of the fun work and less of the hard tasks? Do some tasks bring you more tension than others? Are you good at some things and not so good at others? Well, we all are. But do you do more of the kinds of work that you’re good at than the work that needs to be done? Does some work create tension and confrontation between yourself and others and do you tend to avoid that work? Is there more status or glamour attached to some work than other kinds of work? The basic question is, do you find yourself doing more of the work that fits into your comfort zone and less of the work you don’t like, you don’t do well, or creates stress, or is too challenging, or isn’t the kind of work you want to be seen doing? If you do, you’re not alone. Most of us are attracted to the work that’s inside our comfort zone and consciously, or unconsciously, avoid the work that isn’t.

This is completely a matter of awareness and mindset. You first have to be alert to the fact that you have a tendency to stay in your comfort zone and avoid the work that isn’t comfortable. If you find yourself avoiding certain kinds of work, remind yourself of one of the three key mindsets. Focus on results. The work that has to get done or you won’t get the results that are necessary. Create systems to get the necessary results and delegate them. Then you won’t have to deal with it. You just monitor it.

Next week, join me here for Part III of Speed Bumps.

Until then…

P.S. Click here if you missed Part I.

P.P.S. P.S. Learn more about working ON your business–talk to the coach! Click here to connect with me!