If you’re feeling swamped in your business and there just seems far too much to do and far too many problems that need sorting out, with new ones appearing almost every day – there is a little trick I learnt early in my career that will help.
It will seem counter-intuitive as it doesn’t tackle the problem that’s in front of you. But if you can discipline yourself to give just five minutes each day – you will see amazing results very quickly.
So here it is; give yourself five minutes today dedicated simply to making tomorrow better.
For example, one client spent five minutes one day setting up some rules for her email inbox so that mail was automatically sorted. That five minutes today made every tomorrow much easier for her.
Another decided to look three months ahead (rather than just at tomorrow) and identified a few areas that he knew would need dealing with then and could be pre-planned. He then set about delegating those tasks to people, giving them plenty of notice of what would be needed. That five minutes (Ok, it was more like 15 minutes) saved days and considerable stress further down the line! And although he still had the current problems to deal with, he felt so much better that his motivation and energy increased allowing him to tackle the issues in front of him with renewed vigour.
I have used this technique regularly over the years – some days I manage more that five minutes and some days I manage none at all – however the forward momentum builds up and that feeds the positive feeling with its own reinforcement. Very soon you’ll be feeling better and the problems will be smaller, and most important of all you’ve set a pattern that will help prevent new problems and crises appearing in the future.
