Ever feel paralysed by indecision? Do you procrastinate and feel that your leadership suffers as a result? Leaders are expected to make the right call but sometimes we can be overwhelmed and simply don’t know what to do. Here’s a plan.
1. Take the pressure off. For just a minute, forget the big picture. Forget the enormity of the project. Take your mind off what’s at stake. There will be lots of things involved in whatever you are working on that you have no control over, but you worry about them all the same. Just for now, pretend it doesn’t matter. Chill.
2. Work out what’s next? Now that you are not overwhelmed by the big picture, focus on what is the next thing that needs to happen. Not 20 steps away, just one. What is the next action that you need to take to take this forward? You are not thinking ‘How am I going to finish this marathon?’ Rather, ‘I just need to get to the next checkpoint’.
3. Just do it! With thanks to Nike, do it. Take the action. Crack on. Stop procrastinating because you don’t have all the answers, take action because you have the next one. And, before you go back to old ways and start panicking about the big picture, refer to point 2. Just work out what is the next thing that needs to happen.
Productivity is a vital aspect to leadership. We just have to get things done. Being stuck doesn’t help and, in fact, it can harm our reputation as a leader if others think we can’t or won’t make a decision. I have been teaching this method for some years and recently I saw a blog by Michael Hyatt that added even more clarity.