In true Andy Rooney style, have you ever wondered why people often spend more time and energy working to get out of doing work than if they had just done what needed to be done in the first place?
People who set goals, write them down, formulate a plan of action and then implement that plan are successful people, mostly. It takes dedication, persistence and the proper attitude to get into a mindset to accomplish those goals. It’s simple yet not easy.
As a general rule, we tend to try to take the easy approach to most everything we do. Think about all of the products and services that are available which cater specifically to making things easy. We work so hard at making things easier we often lose sight of the fact that if we had just done what needed to be done without looking for the shortcut we would have probably saved a lot of time and energy in process.
So, why do we keep doing it? It’s a mental block. We have convinced ourselves that shortcuts are good. They save us time, energy and money… so we think. Are shortcuts beneficial in construction? Are shortcuts beneficial in product design and manufacturing? Are shortcuts beneficial in relationship building? No, no and no. Why then would we believe that shortcuts are good in many other situations?
If you are traveling and you find a shorter route, then okay. I’ll give you that one. But, what have you missed out on by taking route A instead of route B? We don’t know because we didn’t take route B. If we took route B we don’t know what we missed along route A. WOW! What a mess!
So, in the interest of simplicity, (probably too late for that, huh?) we will just say that travel doesn’t count. It’s off the table and not even a consideration in this discussion. Problem solved.
Bottom line, we like to be lazy. We look for easier ways to accomplish goals with productive results. Just because we have done something using a shortcut doesn’t make us a bad person. However, be mindful of the route you took as well as the routes you didn’t take so that you can be assured that along the way, your shortcut didn’t cut you short.
Remember, it takes more time for you to go back, make corrections and fix shortfalls that it would if you just took your time and did it right the first time. GO DO!™
I laughed out loud thinking of times in my personal and business life where I tried to find a quicker way to do something and the time it took to do so created more work. In our microwave society where faster is often equated to better, it's easy to undervalue the need to "just go do it" rather than plotting a shortcut. Thanks for the reality check.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this perspective. This is one of the challenges for those who sell. They set their goal (sales revenue), they even as you say write it down, they go out and online for networking. What they don't have in their plan, is that consistent follow-up. There is no shortcut as you say. And if you put the time in to connecting, you can reap the rewards of your time. But as you say Tony, there is no short cut.
ReplyDeleteTony,
ReplyDeleteI find this all the time with small business and marketing. So much is written about do this or that and all the results and successes will follow.
If you have the experience and skills you can take some short cuts but you still follow the tried and tested ways.
Actually I enjoy creating short cuts. It's a game with me! The idea, though, is to make sure that I get the same product in the end (or better).
ReplyDeleteWhen you have two businesses and three young children you do have to search for ways to shorten time.
However short cuts that produce a substandard product are worthless. I completely agree!