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.

Unrealistic Perfectionism This comes out in quite a few people, more than you think, and particularly people running their own businesses. A certain amount of perfectionism is a good thing and it’s important to take pride and your work. But don’t let yourself to go to the extremes of perfectionism on tasks that can be considered complete as they are. Leave well enough alone. If you have extra time in the future, you can come back and make it perfect. But for me, the saying here is, “Sometimes good enough really is good enough.”

Multitasking This might or might not be a problem. It depends on what you mean by multitasking. If you can handle lots of tasks at once and keep them all on track and waste no time switching from one task to another, then multitasking works for you. But really, there’s no such thing as multitasking because your conscious mind can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. What passes for multitasking is either rapid switching from one task to another and back again, or focusing your attention on one task while your unconscious mind for the moment is guiding your other tasks. You’re driving a car, listening to the radio, drinking a cup of coffee, and carrying on a conversation with a friend in the passenger seat. You’re multitasking, but you can only do it because your unconscious mind is handling the routine stuff, like drinking the coffee, while your mind pays its conscious attention wherever you direct it. You won’t be able to listen to the talk show on the radio and talk to the person in the passenger seat 100% of the time. You’ll be tuning in and out of each. You’ll be catching up on bits. You’re not actually focusing on both. You’re just switching from one to the other – to the traffic conditions, to the stop sign in front of you, whatever it might be. So if you’re doing things that largely can be done unconsciously, multitasking works. But your conscious mind can’t handle more than one task at a time. If you think you’re multitasking, you’re actually rapid switching your conscious mind from task to task. The problem with that is it’s actually a form of self interruption. Your attention is on one task and then you switch to another and another then back again. Some people have that ability to switch from one to another really quickly without having to really immerse themselves back into the task, but they’re on full so they don’t feel any disruption. They don’t really lose any time and their attention is focused effectively and instantly.

You might be an effective multitasker, but don’t bet on it. Not many people are, although many people think they are. You’re the only one that can know for sure.

Reverse Delegation Have you ever found yourself doing a task and suddenly realizing, ‘Hey, this is Frank’s job. Why am I doing it’? Or the universal complaint of business owners, ‘why is it if I want the job done right, I have to do it myself’? Do your people ever come to you with requests like ‘you’re really great at this. Would you have a go at this one’ or ‘I’ve got this upset client here and you’re so good at dealing with people like that, could you take this call’? There are heaps of them every day. Just start to notice. Become alert to when there’s reverse delegation happening, whether you’re choosing to take it from that person, or they’re handing it up to you to do. Sometimes they are legitimate requests and the work really should end up in your lap, but more often they’re simply ways that your employees delegate work up to you that they should be dealing with themselves. Actually, it’s pretty smart of them. If they can get you to do their work, they’re freed up to do other things. So when your employees want you to do their work, don’t do it. Give them some guidance if they need it, but politely insist that they do the job.

One of my rules here is bring me solutions, not problems. If someone comes and says I don’t know how to do this, or how should I do it, usually they do know. It’s worth your while taking a couple of minutes just to let them know that it’s okay for them to think. Ask them what they think the solution should be, talk through the solution and let them go and do it.

Having looked at these speed bumps, I hope you’ve taken notes on which ones apply to you. Be sure to stop by next week when I’ll be discussing Best Practices.

Until then…

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

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