Do this over the weekend

Yes or no leads to flow. Maybe messes the whole thing up.

If you missed the previous issues that explain what I mean there, go back and read them.

Now, I want to leave you with something to DO about it – and an exercise you can do over the weekend. If you do it, I think you will find yourself feeling unburdened and having more focus come Mondaymorning.

So, if we know that all these maybe’s can lead to stuck processes and it begins to park off chunks of us, then the solution is to get rid of the maybe’s. Makes sense, right?

It comes down to two things:

1. Change how we approach things from this day forward so we don’t bring on more stuckness (is that even a word?).
2. Go back and “unstick” the maybe’s that are already sitting there.

Now, for #1, it basically comes down to having a real attitude of leaning forward and taking action rather than putting it off. It means instituting a new policy of making a decision on something right away (yes or no) and then moving on.

If there’s an instance where you can’t make a decision immediately, then you avoid a stuck maybe by SCHEDULING a time by which that decision MUST be made. Define your next step, but you set the target for that yes/no to occur so that it doesn’t just halt there.

You decide… then you move on. You become a freakin’ HUNTER of maybe’s and you don’t let them happen. You’re a decision maker. And, you begin being OK with simply saying “no”.

So, as a small example, let’s say you have some marketer who is selling something. You’re getting emails about it. Perhaps you’re interested. The wrong thing to do is put off a decision and park it as a “maybe”. Instead, just make a decision… even if it is “no”.

Alright, so that’s how you deal with new things coming at you. Yes or no.

But, what about the stuck charge back there of all the things still hanging up left undone?

Well, it’s good to pull some weeds out of the garden every now and then. 🙂

So, make a list from your own life of things that have become stuck on “maybe”. Where things have stopped flowing because of an unmade decision. List them all done – as much as you can think of.

While you’re at it, I want you to look for some of the more obvious symptoms of maybe’s such as:

• Tasks which have been stuck incomplete for quite awhile. (Hint: lack of time is rarely the reason why.)
• Emails which have been parked in your inbox for awhile. Why?
• Crap on your desk or sitting around the house that shouldn’t be there. Why?
• Junk you keep around “just in case”. Why? You know that “just in case” rarely actually happens, right?

With each of those things, evaluate it and make a decision on your next step. Yes or no.

Perhaps you’ll re-evaluate and simply decide you don’t need to do anything about it. That’s OK. Just delete it, trash it, whatever.

Perhaps it requires some action that is relatively quick to do and that would unstick the matter. Great! Do that action now and be done with it.

Perhaps some research is needed and you can’t do the yes/no decision right this minute. OK. In that case, I want you to do 2 things:

1. Decide on your very next step for that thing. What exact thing will you do about it?
2. Schedule a deadline by which that item must be done and the decision made, yes or no.

Alright, so one by one, what you’re doing is going through each STUCK… and you’re “unsticking” it by making the yes/no decision.

You’re unsticking the process. Or quitting it. Just like we do on our computer when something gets stuck in memory or a process hangs up.

Do this over the weekend.

The whole thing might take more than the weekend and that’s OK. Unstick a few things. You’ll feel great and you’ll feel like a burden is coming off… even if those dumb email messages didn’t seem like a big deal to you before. It isn’t that it is serious… it is just that it stacks up and starts to park off your own personal power.

If you do that, I KNOW you’ll have a great (and productive) weekend. 🙂

I’ll check in on Monday and see how it all went.

Adios, amigo.

– David