Richard Maun

Author: moderncareers

  • Try vs Do

    Don't try and mow the lawn...go and do something less boring instead!
    Don't try and mow the lawn…go and do something less boring instead!

    I was chatting with a happy client last week who’d made in-roads into his long to-do list, after our previous coaching session.

    Curious to know exactly what had caused the shift in his effectiveness, I asked what he was doing differently now?

    ‘Well, it’s quite simple really,’ he replied, ‘every time I find myself using the word try in my speech or in my thoughts I stop and ask myself if I’m really going to do the work? If I’m just picking at it, I stop the task and choose something else. That way I’m not wasting as much time and although I’m might not always be doing what I ‘should’ be doing, at least I am doing something productive.’

    He had a point. We can often sit down and try to finish the task we’re supposed to be doing, but which secretly we’re bored with. In reality it’s often better to own up to our faffing, stop the task and change course.

    Indeed I did this myself the other day, when trying to write some PR material. I tried really hard for a bit and then realised what I was doing (which was trying to write). So I stopped the trying and choose a different task (giving Crow’s plummage a brush after his dust bath) and got on with a decent slab of doing.

    If we promise to try and mow the lawn, paint the fence, wash the car, clean the windows or take the dog for a walk, it’s a fair bet that none of these things will actually happen. And we’ve not broken our promise either because (due to a handy psychological insurance policy) we only committed to try and do these things and not to actually do them. A subtle difference, but the devil is in the detail.

    For extra insurance cover we may have started them and then found a jolly good reason to stop and watch a bit of sport on the tellybox….the job clearly only ‘paused temporarily.’

    Next time someone offers to try and do something…pause them and ask if they’re:

    A) Going to try and do it?

    B) Going to do it?

    You’ll be amazed at how much more productive they are when they choose B).

  • Three Questions For A Healthy Business

    Is your office as tidy as this?
    Is your office as tidy as this?

    I’ve been having a tidy up this weekend. In fact ‘tidy up’ doesn’t really do it justice, given that I’ve relocated my office office back into my home office, stripped the home office shelves bare, thrown away old documents and mobile phone cables, sorted out my archive in the loft, thrown away more old bits of tat and then re-populated the office shelves, so that they look clean and organised and purposeful.

    There’s a bit of fine tuning to do, but I have to say that a Spring clean and general change around was well overdue. Ratty and Moley would be proud, and no doubt would whip up a sumptuous picnic to celebrate.

    Out of all this dusty, yet rewarding, activity three lessons emerge…lessons which I’ve been reminding myself of this weekend. They are:

    1. Nothing is forever. I’ve really enjoyed having a shared office space and now, having written two books there and sorted out my ILM accreditation, it’s time to move on. Change is good – I’m on the road a lot more again and don’t need to have two desks!

    2. Build income streams before expenditure streams. I was debating whether to find another office space, when a colleague of mine pointed out that it’s easy to accumulate costs and that good business requires you to make money before you spend it. (How many people do you know who run their business the other way round?) So, I’ve moved my office rent budget for the year ahead into my marketing budget, which is a better use of resouces and frees me up to boost the spend on book four.

    3. Be decisive. When you move: move. When you’re throwing things away: throw stuff away. It’s amazing how tempting it’s been to dither, or to hang on to bits of paper….yet if I’ve not touched it in 6 years, do I really need it? So, I’ve been decisive and have moved everything home, have been ruthless with the waste and have kept asking myself: ‘What am I keeping this for?’

    It’s been a great weekend. And leaves me with three questions for you to think about this week:

    1) Where could you make a big change to your business expenditure and reinvest the money into something more useful to you?

    2) What do you need to be decisive about this week?

    3) What are you keeping all that clutter for exactly…???

    Have a good week. I’m off to nick some of Ratty’s potted ham, potted shrimp, jellied lobster, farmhouse cheese, cold chicken, cold tongue, cold pork, pickles, crusty loaf, biscuits, apple juice, scones, butter, strawberry jam and thick cream. He may be a fictional rat, but he does whip up dastardly delicious comestibles.