How to Overcome Procrastination with a Question

Maybe it is because I consider myself naturally inquisitive. Maybe it is because our brains respond to questions instinctively. Maybe it is because it was written down once in a David Allen book somewhere. For whatever reason I have found that I can achieve a very focused state by simpling reframing a task in the form of a question. This sounds trivial, but the realization alone has allowed me to get things off my task list much sooner. Consider the following example.

I have an item on my task list.

Research keeping depreciation off personal property in a personal holding company.

This item has been there for too long and I need to get it resolved because it is important to a client of mine. It could also mean more business for our firm. But the task of “research” is daunting. When it comes to getting things off your to do list Allen recommends breaking items down into their next physical task. That works great for cleaning out the garage or packing for the family the vacation. But knowledge work is more nuanced. Instead of the next physical action I would be better off to consider the next mental action I need to take.

This is where asking questions allows knowledge workers to kick productivity into high gear. GTD afficianodos know that the process of breaking next actions into more granular activities can get obscene. There is a law of diminishing returns. Getting so detailed as “squeeze the toothepaste for .6 seconds” does not add meaningfully to your quality of life. But in the area of knowledge work not only do we fail to consider the mental action over the physical, we also take on projects large enough to choke an entire hemisphere of the brain. By asking questions and getting more granular we can increase productivity and overcome pracrastination at the same time.

I have rewritten my task as a project and have broken it down into a few more mental actions.

Client xxxxx research project

Is there such a thing as non-business corporate property?

Is depreciation required for non-business corporate property, citation needed?

What documentation is required to substantiate personal property? Business property?

Is the allowed vs. allowable language going to kill us no matter what we do?

Ultimately, is there a way to preserve the basis at original cost for a number of years?

When I reframe the research task in this way I find that my brain is just itching to answer the first question. In the process of thinking about what questions need to be answered you actually start in on the task and that little bit of headway seeems to push through the procrastination bottlneck.

What does this have to do with running your business better? Whether we are working with a business that does something very tangible (manufacturing) or very intangible (law office) the process of working on the business tends toward the intangible side of the spectrum. When we work with business owners stuck in the tangible all day, every day, this switch to the intangible creates a very different to do list. For example, in the course of planning we might decide to “map the service delivery workflow and eliminate redundancies.” More than once I have left a management team with this sort of task on its to do list only to come back a week or a month later and find it still sitting there. But notice the difference an extra five minutes of planning can make. Let’s reframe the task as a question and break it into smaller parts.

What can we do to elminate redundancy in our service delivery?

Who are all the people directly involved in service delivery?

Indirectly involved?

What does each person do?

Are their activities running parallel or sequential?

How long does each activity take?

Why is each activity there?

Are there any we can get rid of?

Do they have to happen in the same order or is there a better way?

Who isn’t involved in service delivery that should be?

These are not tough questions to ask. Answering them may be more difficult, but unless you ask them the task of “mapping workflow” and “emiminating redundancies” can get overwhelming in a hurry.

The reason this type of on-the-fly planning isn’t practiced is the same thing that makes it so effective. It only takes minutes, literally. It doesn’t require a new piece of software, a weekend retreat or the latest tactics from a time management best seller. If you want to take knowledge work to the next level do this:

1. Buy a stack of 3x5 index cards.


2. Place your stack directly underneath your computer monitor.


3. Any time you are about to begin something that will take longer than 30 minutes pull out an index card and write the task across the top.


4. Spend 3–5 minutes listing all the micro steps required to complete your task.


5. Plunge ahead and get it done.

All we are talking about is 3–5 minutes. Brian Tracy famously said for every one minute spent planning we save twelve in execution. That may not hold true for a 30 minute project. Then again, how many times have you looked up after 90 minutes and thought “holy crap, why did that take so long?” Give it a try, you might be surprised.

You can tell how much authority a person has by what they can say "yes" to. The server at your favorite restaurant can bring you an extra serving of broccoli on the house, but the manager can comp your entire meal. The airline ticket counter can let you check an extra bag free of charge, but the captain can hold the plane at the gate. This post is about the power of yes and the fallacy of the power to say "no."

The Power to Say "No"

Every day you run into someone just itching to say "no" to you, from fast food drive through attendants, to corporate gate keepers, to the bank teller having a bad day. "No" is a power trip taken by the frustrated, peeved, and short tempered. It is a favorite word of people at the short end of their own proverbial stick. But the power of "no" is a fallacy.

Everyone can say "no." You need no special powers, no training, no desire to do anything other than utter a single syllable. If the unwashed masses can all say it, and they can do it regularly with little consequence, the two letter word may not indicate so much power as we think. The truth is, "no" is selfish word. One of the great time management tactics available to the overbooked, over committed and over worked is the magic of "no." If you have no time for yourself you probably need to say "no" more often.

But this doesn't describe most people. Most people have no problem putting themselves at the head of the line. If you doubt this just visit a toy store the weekend before Christmas. When someone finds themselves in the position to say "no" they also are in a great position to get what they want. And what do most people want? Sameness. Change is scary. Tasks I've never done before, suck. Taking risks is for younger people. Me? I want more of the same. And "no" is just the ticket.

"No" is the great perpetuator of the status quo. It is the hobgoblin of innovation. It is the sour puss at the birthday party. "No" is the easy way to say "not today, not ever." And it happens every day. It happens so often that people who say "yes" stand out as heroes, while the masses that say "no" exact a high price for their ability to be keep the upper hand.

The Cost of No

In most business interactions there is an audience of exactly two people, yourself and the person listening. And this leads us to the reason that hostage negotiators are taught never to say "no" to the bad guys. "No" creates an environment of me vs. you. It is the ultimate polarizer. It is the precursor to a zero sum game. And if one person must win and one person must lose that innocuous little word sets the stage for epic conflict, even in the smallest of affairs.

"No" puts your customers on the other side of the table. They have no choice but to treat you as the adversary. Once the lines have been drawn and you have placed yourself on the other side of the table it is game on. But it doesn't stop there. "No" permeates a culture rapidly. Soon employees are refusing help to one another, bosses are denying simple requests and no one feels any obligation to do anything but look out for themselves.

"No" allows your employees to vent their personal frustrations at the office. When customers become passive aggressive punching bags problems start surfacing everywhere. Think that new prospect is going to get an answer on the proposal at 5:01 on a Friday? Nope. Hoping that your longest and best customer gets a little extra attention on a service call? Think again. "No" will infect every aspect of a business, from record keeping to employee evaluations. No one is safe once you have let "no" enjoy free reign for a few weeks.

The Power to Say "Yes"

If you buy into all this talk about "no" you might also be thinking about a rousing staff meeting speech encouraging everyone to say "yes" more often. But it's not that easy. A culture of "yes" has to be deliberately nurtured if it is going to make any difference in operations. The power to say "yes" has to be built on a solid foundation.

• Team members must be granted the authority to say "yes," and it must be a formal acknowledgement from leadership.
• For it to mean something that authority cannot be given indiscriminately. It must be earned.
• The effect of "yes" must be demonstrated by leadership.

I will say a little about each of these points.

Formal granting of authority

There is a lot to be said for rites of passage. These are distinct points in time that separate one phase of life from another. The first time my dad let me mow the yard by myself was a rite of passage. My first sleep-away summer camp was a rite of passage. When my parents gave me the car keys for the first time it was a rite of passage. To be truly memorable and meaningful these events need to be formally acknowledged. It is one thing to grab the keys as your parents tell you to be careful and get home by 11. It is something else entirely for them to ceremoniously dangle the car key over your outstretched palm between thumb and forefinger while they look into your eyes and say "It all changes from here; we can't watch you anymore; we have to trust that you are going to look after yourself and those in your care." The power to say "yes" needs to be handed over like something sacred.

Too often we assume that team members know they should say "yes" to satisfy customers. But who would you rather have at the cash register? The person you assume knows what to do or the person who treats their responsibility like it has been handed down on stone tablets? Don't underestimate the power of granting your team explicit authority. Treat the power to say "yes" like something special and meant only for the trustworthy. If you do you will find that it is used with care and diligence. Treat it like yesterday's newspaper and you will see your team members do the same.

It must be earned

There is a parable in Matthew that says

"Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."

To some this seems unfair, but to your customers it seems just. Your customers do not want the newest employee to have the unbridled authority to solve their problem. They want the manager or the senior person on the floor to be able to come to their rescue. Be careful about granting the authority to say "yes" to someone who has not earned it.

While "yes" has the power to delight it also has the ability to make things much worse. If a customer returns a broken product that has been recalled, and demands a replacement the employee without the wisdom to say "no" can create huge potential liability by granting the customer's demand. In service situations employees who indiscriminately reinforce bad customer habits circumvent processes. Left unchecked they will eventually undermine the company's work with customers who adhere to those same processes.

It must be demonstrated by leadership

Your team members need to experience what it feels like on the other side of the table when someone hears "yes." They need to hear you say it and experience the emotions that go along. This does not mean that you become a push over. It means that you listen a lot more. It means that you encourage conversations. It means that you look for opportunities to say "yes." Leaders are so accustomed to saying "no" that the habit of looking for chances to say "yes" is hard.

And when you say "yes" you have to make sure that you follow through and deliver. The only thing worse than a manager who says "no" all the time is one that says "yes" all the time. Employees are not stupid. They understand that not every request can be granted. Resources are limited; other people have to be considered; these are the rules of life. When you try to temporarily suspend reality by granting every request your employees will know you are full of it. What follows is an arbitrary granting of some requests and an arbitrary languishing of others.

You need to demonstrate a series of wins with your team where "yes" has been heard and "yes" has been seen. If you skip this step you will find that you have built a great group of people pleasers that cannot execute.

The Effect of "Yes"

Imagine a business where your team members start telling customers "yes...we can find a way to fix your problem," "yes...we can get that done today," "yes...I'd be happy to look into that." The most noticeable effect of the power of "yes" is that it creates a culture of delight. Saying "yes" is a selfless act, and those who use it to help others enjoy the feeling the accompanies the giving of a gift.

But a culture of "yes" also allows people to find fulfillment through work. To say "yes" a lot you have to love what you are saying "yes" to. You don't have to love anything about your work to say "no." Not surprisingly many of the people so proficient at saying "no" are miserable. When it becomes the cultural norm to say "yes" miserable people do not last very long. They either self weed or are culled from the herd by their peers. Those who are left see themselves playing a much larger role than delivering widgets or answering customer inquiries. They believe the world is a better place because of their role in it.

But your customers are not the only beneficiaries. The same way a culture of "no" bleeds over into employee interactions a culture where team mates respond with "yes" begins to enrich communications and employee effectiveness. Knowing that your co-worker will stop and help you drives many employees to look for the answer themselves a little longer lest they take advantage of someone they respect. It also encourages people to be a little more vulnerable around each other in asking for help. This process builds a more cohesive team with real relationships, not just 9-5 proximity to one another.

Finally, the culture of "yes" makes the win-win outcome the standard measure of the organization. People are no longer satisfied with the zero sum game whether it's played with fellow employees, customers, vendors or the boss.

Back to the Real World

I know it is not all rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes you need to say "no." There are plenty of good reasons to decline requests, demands and passive aggressive suggestions. But those reasons are elaborated over and over again in time management pieces and personal empowerment articles. I don't think I need to get into that. I want to take the other road, the one too often ignored. It is not the same as the idea that "the customer is always right." The decision to say "yes" is about the proper exercise of power. "No" may afford you the opportunity to put someone in the place you think they belong, but "yes" gives you the ability to put them in the place they aspire to. When it comes to role models I will take Mother Teresa over the disgruntled toll booth operator every day of the week.

I was talking with some other firm owners this week. While discussing what our ideal customer looks like this idea of optimism and determination came up. It is not surprising that we want to see this in our customers. It is a value we all aspire to. We want to see it not only in ourselves but in our friends, in our family members and in those people that we encounter every day. The greatest thing about the research reported in the Times article is that it excludes no one. In fact, those who have the odds against them are in the position of greatest opportunity. It is they who can demonstrate grit. The people you encounter who seem to be at the bottom, weighed down by a mountain of circumstances that argue against their eventual success, are the ones poised to surprise you. And if you are the one under the mountain? Take heart. No one finishes your story but you. Start writing.

Check it out here.

My client asked if there was a faster way to inactivate these vendors so their names do not clutter up the pulldown lists present whenever a vendor name needs to be entered. Below are four screenshots showing the steps necessary to obtain a list of vendors where you can check off the ones you would like to make inactive. This is much faster than editing each vendor record to select the inactive checkbox.

Select Vendor Center from the Vendors menu.

In the view drop down box select "All Vendors"

In the far left column of the list you will be able to place an "x" by clicking next to each vendor name you wish to make inactive.

When you are finished you can switch the view back to "Active Vendors" and the ones you made inactive will be out of your way.

Below is a short video of mouse clicks and such. I know...I know. Exciting stuff.

The change I propose is a simple one, but that does not mean that it is easy. What I would like you to commit to it over the next year is working a plan. I am not advocating that you build a fully fledged strategic business plan from scratch. Nor am I advocating an intensive SWOT analysis, or reams of new initiatives and ideas. I want to keep it simple. I want you to commit to run your business according to a plan over the next 12 months.

Working the plan means that you are being intentional about where you spend your time and energy and money. It is the only way to consistently move in a single direction over the course of weeks, months, and ultimately a year. It requires a measure of discipline, but not as much as you might think. What you really need is a system and a routine to follow. I'm going to give you my prescription for working a plan if you have never had one before.

Stephen Covey in his book  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People advocates beginning with the end in mind. That is exactly where I would like you to start your plan. Think about three areas in your business where you would like to see improvements over the next year. Examples might be higher sales, lower employee turnover, higher customer satisfaction, lower inventory levels, higher average sales price, lower debt, better profitability, etc. I am sure that you can come up with more than three, and that is a good exercise to go through. But when you are done go back to your list and prioritize it. Which is the most important improvement you can make? Which is the second most important, and the third most important? The secret to developing a really good plan is intense focus. You must limit yourself to only three areas for the year.

Now that you have identified three areas for improvement I want you to identify what success looks like in each area. If higher sales is an area of focus how much higher do sales need to be for you to consider yourself successful? If you want a higher average sales price, what do you want the price to be? You must get really specific, and this is where most people stop doing the work. Don't wimp out on this part of the activity. It is the hardest, but it is also the most important.

So now you have three areas of focus, and a definition of success for each area. Think about how much progress you can make toward that success over the next 90 days. You might just divide the difference between where you are now and where you want to be into four quarters and attack it that way. But your progress is rarely linear. You will usually make a lot of progress in the beginning and things will level off toward the end, or progress will be slow initially and then accelerate rapidly toward the end. It just depends on the type of change are trying to make. How do you imagine things progressing and where could things be 90 days from now? Write down what success looks like for each area of focus 90 days from now.

For each area of focus there is going to be a laundry list of possible projects and tasks that will move you toward your goal. If this is the first time you have ever tackled this kind of business planning, you would be wise to limit your focus over the next 90 days to only two projects in each area. This does not sound like a lot, but two projects over three areas of focus equals six projects over 13 weeks. If each project has four or five tasks that means you are adding 30 things to your to-do list for the next quarter. You don't need to do any more than that.

Now it's time to get to work. The key to making significant progress in your business over the next year comes down to carrying out your to-do list on a weekly basis. I have developed a simple spreadsheet that I have used over and over again to help business owners stay focused on their quarterly projects and one year goals. I suggest that you print it out, fill it in, and keep it on your desk where you can see it every day. If your plan is staring you in the face when you arrive in the morning, and it's one of the last things you see when you turn off the lights at night you are much for likely to focus on your priorities and goals when scheduling your time.

There are couple things you should remember as you start this process. First, it is unlikely that you will maintain steady progress throughout the year. There will be times when you fall off the tracks, and lose focus on your plan for days or weeks. Accept this, know that it will happen, and prepare yourself for the day when you will have to get back on track. It can be incredibly discouraging to fall behind on your plan. That's one of the reasons I only advocate three areas of focus and two projects per quarter. Even if you get distracted after six or seven weeks the worst-case scenario is that you will lose little more than a month's worth of progress. With each quarter comes a chance to push the reset button and start over. If you successfully complete all your projects for the quarter and your areas of focus show significant progress toward your year-end goals you can begin the next quarter with a whole new set of 90 day goals and corresponding projects. But if some things remain undone do not feel bad about continuing to work on those things for more than one quarter. If your annual goals were important enough to list in the first place, they are important enough to focus on until you see progress.

Second, your success rate is directly proportional to the level of outside accountability in your life. If no one knows about your plan it will be very easy to just stick it in a drawer if you fall behind. Private failure is something most of us have become very accustomed to. But public failure is a different prospect entirely. I encourage you to tell people about your plan. But be careful. If you have a team your first inclination may be to share it with key employees. If this is the first time you have engaged in a planning exercise you may want to reconsider laying all of this out to your employees. I think it is better for first timers to share their plan with fellow business owners, outside coaches, or other business advisors before they get involved in leading a team through the strategic planning and execution process. 

The reason for this is trust. A leader who develops a plan, follows that plan for a few weeks or months, then abandons the plan because things have gone off the tracks may seriously damage the trust relationship with key employees. Successive efforts to introduce business planning will be met with skepticism and halfhearted efforts. That is why I think it's better to seek accountability from outside your team. It is highly likely that at some point during your first year of planning you will fall of the tracks. It is better to have your personal accountability group rake you over the coals and get you back on track than it is to have your employees discouraged and disenchanted with the whole idea of strategic planning and execution.

There is nothing worse than looking back over the last year and realizing things have not changed. I hope to help you avoid that depressing feeling. Putting together a simple, achievable plan is the first step. Aim low. Don't get too ambitious. Get an early win in the books, and build on that success once you know what it feels like. Working a plan this next year could be the start of a whole new chapter in your business life.

I spent about an hour walking attendees through the book and giving some examples of how the principles in this book have helped transform our selling process at Axiom. We will be doing six more of these events in 2012 beginning the third Thursday in February and every other month thereafter. Look for announcements on this blog three weeks prior to each event. Hope to see you there.

Discover the Best Sales Training Resource on the Planet from Joey Brannon on Vimeo.

Now, I don't think Dr. Cloud and I are miles apart in our thinking, but I did recognize that my propensity to be optimistic and hopeful is not helpful in every situation. There were three key takeaways that I got from the book.

First, hopelessness is necessary to drive difficult cheange. Unless you see the present course of action as hopeless you will keep pressing on. You will keep throwing money into a losing business. You will keep wasting time in a dead end relationship. And you will keep giving too many chances to the wrong employee. Hopelessness is your ally in defeating the status quo, in getting unstuck from the ruts of bad habit and unproductive routine.

In order to get to the point of hopelessness Cloud says we must do the exact opposite of what every self help book teaches. Rather than envisioning the future as rosy and ideal, Cloud says to play the present tape forward. Imagine things progressing along their existing path. Imagine nothing gets better and things just run their course. What kind of misery are you in for? How ugly is it going to get? See it, touch it, taste it, and feel it in all its misery and ugliness.

Seeing where your present path is headed makes it easier to embrace the kind of uncomfortable change required to start a new course. It turns out this strategy is rooted in Cloud's understanding of how the past works, and it is an integral part to the second big takeaway.

Second, Cloud asserts the past will repeat itself unless: 1) you have a different person to believe in or 2) you have radically different behavior to believe in. This sounds like common sense but it isn't the way we live. Often hope is the only strategy for underperforming sales, struggling business units and dead beat spouses. I'm not saying we shouldn't exercise mercy and grace, but I am saying it's foolish to put your faith in something that has only let you down miserably, even if that something is your own behavior.

Third, when the necessary ending involves a person we must distinguish between the person and the behavior. The ending should start with the behavior and move on to the person only if they can't get things under control. Cloud makes a great point about employers who say "David needs to change," or "Sue needs to get her act together." The truth is neither David nor Sue is under any compulsion to change. Their behavior is working out just fine for them. It's the employer or the co-worker that is suffering.

Recognizing this problem allows an effective leader to have make unacceptable behaviour the employee's problem. A conversation detailing the behaviors that are now the employee's problem should be followed by a frank series of consequences for failure to change. In short, we need to stop making these folks problems our own. Give them back their problems and give them consequences for failure to change. After that let them deal with the consequences.

This book was refreshing for me because it gave me some clarity on things in my life and business that need to reach a point of hopelessness. Our time and billing system is a good example. For six years we had been trying to do innovative, value added work alongside timesheets and it just wasn't working. Reaching a degree of hopelessness allowed me to make some bold commitments, learn a new way of managing our workflow and implement real change in a very short amount of time.

In an attempt to reconcile Cloud's book with my previous post I can say that reaching necessary endings really isn't anything like quitting. On the contrary, getting to and accepting a necessary ending is about seeing the reality of our failures. Too often these gray areas masquerade as problems in need of perseverance and hope. The reality, while stark and depressing, is that pruning through the acceptance and hastening of necessary endings is the secret many successful entrepreneurs have learned the hard way. I highly recommend Cloud's book.

I quit something that I have regretted for the last 16 years. When I was in college I played soccer. I was on scholarship, not a big scholarship, but it was decent enough the coach thought it justifiable to subsidize my education. But I quit. As soccer increasingly impeded my social life and ambitions outside the classroom I decided I would stop.

It took about a year, but it happened. The gnawing regret set in and now every time I think about that hastily made decision I wish I had decided differently. I wish someone would have tried harder to talk me out of it. I wish I would have paused to consider the "no going back" part of my decision. I wish I would have understood that quitting is a one-way street. There is no going back. I wish...I wish...I wish...

And that's why I quit and that's why I still regret it. I was wishing my way to an easier, less stressful, more enjoyable college career. I should have been working my way there, but I wasn't. I was wishing. And unless you're a fairy godmother (or have access to one) wishing will get you little in life.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon I caught myself watching Rudy on cable. Rudy is the story of Dan "Rudy" Ruettiger, a small football player with a big heart. Rudy earned his way into Notre Dame football history by not quitting. There is a scene in the movie at a time when Rudy has been denied admission to Notre Dame for the third or fourth time. He's sitting in a church, incredibly distraught and he asks the priest "Have I done everything I possibly can?"

That, in a nutshell, is the story of Rudy Ruettiger. It explains his success at Notre Dame and the stamp he has placed on the world. He could have blamed the admissions staff, the system of privilege, his parents inability to help, or any other of a hundred excuses. But he didn't because he knew those things were irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was whether or not he had done everything he possibly could to achieve his goal.

When you quit you stop asking "Have I done everything I possibly can?" When you quit you are usually saying something like "I wish it would have turned out better." It is OK to fail. As business owners we have innumerable opportunities to fail every day and every week. There are goals we miss, initiatives that die on the vine, projects that fall flat, employees that don't work out and customers that get upset. Quitting says "that's life and there's nothing I can do about it." I want to challenge you to ask a question instead. Ask "Have I personally done everything I possibly can to make this happen?" If the answer is yes, you might be failing. If the answer is no you are on the verge of quitting. Act wisely after you answer. Sixteen years later you'll remember your choice, and you'll remember it with pride or regret.