One of the best things about running my own small businesses rather than working in a large company has been the fact that I’ve been facing up to challenges and weaknesses rather than being able to find someone to delegate them to. I’m lucky enough to be able to get very good advice from a number of successful people, and there are times when paying for external assistance makes sense – for instance, when it comes to legal issues or accounting. But it’s still down to me to get that assistance sorted and make the decisions, and it’s down to me to understand enough about each subject to judge whether I’ve gone with the right people.
And that means overcoming the force of resistance.
It’s something that I talked a little about in the context of reviewing ‘Do The Work‘, but there’s also a very simple phsychological trick which is invaluable, and which I picked up from the very useful 59 Seconds by Professor Richard Wiseman. It’s a really good book that distills down a lot of the self-help advice you see being sold into very quick and simple advice based on scientific research, and aims to help you change in a matter of minutes, not months.
One of the tips on motivation and productivity references the ‘Zeigarnik Effect‘, which you’ve probably experienced, even if you didn’t realise it. Named after Bluma Zeigarnik, who first noticed the effect of unfinished activity on waiters in the 1920s, the lesson is simple. If you start something for a few minutes, it will stick in your mind, and your anxious mind will keep referencing it until it’s finished. And that is likely to be enough for even chronic procrastinators to finish the most arduous of tasks without any other tricks or tools.
It’s why ToDo lists help, or why focusing for 20 minutes with the Pomodoro Technique can work so well – because you’re forced to sit down and start the thing you’ve been putting off because it’s big and scary.
But just by getting started, you’ll be much closer to finishing it, and moving onto the next thing!
And it’s certainly working for me – whether it’s writing down the initial outline or draft of a marketing strategy, tackling the admin side of business, or even getting blog posts published!