I have a friend who wanted to book the concerts for the county fair so he volunteered to work the shows and do the behind-the-scenes, day-of-show grunt work — for 15 years. He was finally hired to do the booking.
Another friend wanted to write a book so she started writing. It involved one hour at a time, early mornings, restarting, and lots of edits, but she kept at it, and is now a published author — 10 years after she wrote her first page. I
A community member had a vision for how a recreational space could become much more than that and be turned into a regional tourist destination — and her dream will be realized 10 or 11 years after she laid out her “crazy” plan.
If you have a big dream for what you can achieve tomorrow, the only way to get there is with little steps in that direction today — and every day for literally years. There is no overnight success story, even if it feels like it happens to others.
I recently had a tour of a newly developed space that was being utilized for commercial and non-profit use. Someone asked if a particular company was going to open a facility in this district. “Their board wants to have a thumbprint, not a footprint” was the answer.
What a great way to consider the options. You don’t need to think of moves or major projects in terms of an all-or-nothing proposition. You can have a branch office, an express version of your service, or a kiosk-like storefront.
Testing the waters is a prudent strategy and one that may preserve options for you down the road. Think of making just a thumbprint next time you are asked for your time or resources in support of a new venture. It’s a way to signal that you give the project a “thumbs up” without over-committing to the unknown.
Originally published in modified form on June 28, 2013
A colleague called me today asking for a “teaching moment” whereby I could give him some advice. I love those kind of phone calls!
He is wanting to tackle a process in his organization that crosses departments — meaning that everyone has a piece, but no one owns the process. Translated, this means that everyone does their own thing and no one (up until now) has bothered to consider the whole process from a client perspective or to be intentional about how it occurs. He was asking how he could affect change without becoming the “do-er” or permanent owner of the whole thing.
My answer: “sorry.” As much as he would like to dream up the solution and hand it off, it isn’t a realistic option. He is asking people who have done things the same way for literally decades to make a change. They don’t want to; don’t need to; don’t see the purpose for doing so, and are certainly not going to volunteer to own a new process. His best hope is to focus, over and over and over, on the “why” behind the changes he is proposing; take responsibility for doing the new work himself this year, and hope that those involved will see the improvement. Next year it will be easier to delegate something that people have actually seen (and hopefully understand.)
After I shared my thoughts, he laughed and said “I knew that is what you were going to say. I knew that I had to do the work; I was just hoping there was another answer.”
Those with the vision often have to assume the workload in order to see the new ideas implemented. It is hard for people who are entrenched in a process to even fathom how it could be different, so you must show them instead of just telling them.
So dream on, my dear friend, and then roll up your sleeves and get to it.
Originally published in modified form on June 5, 2013
Q: There is one lily pad floating on a pond. Every day the number of lily pads in the pond will double. If it will take one month to cover the entire pond with lily pads, on what day will the pond be half-covered?
A: On the 29th day
If this was a change initiative project, everyone who wasn’t directly involved in the implementation would be “wowed” on day 30 when the full effort was unveiled. People think that change happens in big increments instead of a series of small ones, and it is this illusion that allows change to take on mythical powers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Change happens in little steps, often involving a lot of grunt work, do-overs, trial & error, and frustrations. Only after enough persistence in this mode does a true “breakthrough” occur. Change is not lofty. Change is not mysterious. Change is not caused by those who are lucky. Change happens because everyday people put in the effort, over time, to take baby steps toward a goal. They connect the dots. Today is Day 1. What steps are you taking to fill your pond on Day 30 (or 300)?
Originally published in modified form on November 9, 2012
The most important lesson that I learned in all of college can be summarized in five words: “Writing is different than editing.” It was the admonishment of a curmudgeonly old journalism professor that we just write, putting unfiltered thoughts out there, and tend to organization and editing later.
Because of this simple mantra, I have completed hundreds of proposals, papers, projects, and especially a dissertation. Writing and editing utilize different portions of the brain and as we worry about spelling or comma placement, we cut off the creative flow that comes from freely expressing thought. Writing without editing also produces a far greater quantity of writing – giving the editor a larger selection of work from which to glean some “good stuff”. It makes all the difference in getting something done. A blank page is intimidating, but reviewing something that is already there takes much less effort. We often know what we don’t like, so editing it out comes naturally.
I think this lesson applies to many things beyond the literary world. It is really about starting and worrying about making it better later. START vacation planning and then narrow down specifics later. START planning a menu for your dinner party and then swap out choices later. START making a Christmas gift list and then make changes depending upon what you actually find at the mall. START thinking of all those courses you could take and then pick one or two. START dragging out the box of receipts and sorting them into piles and then determine what is tax-deductible later.
We don’t like to begin, and we don’t like to have first drafts in life. But a good life is like that – continuously editing to make it better.
Originally published in modified form on July 19, 2012
After yesterday’s dot (#3665) about my storage system, a friend asked:
Any advice for me: I have a lot of organizing and purging to do. Office stuff. It’s hard to do when there’s so much. I read an article recently about minimalism and how it’s hard to start when the job seems so big. It seems like it would be never ending and would prevent me from using time now for more enjoyable things. Any ideas on how to make this fun?
Drat! I have no magical advice on how to make boring tasks fun. Susan Power wrote: “The motivation is in the doing.” I think about that a lot (usually when it comes to writing the next dot — I’m rarely motivated to start but the motivation comes from doing.) So, the trick is to start. I’d suggest:
Put an hour appointment on your calendar (daily for 2 weeks or weekly for 2 months, etc.) and hold to it like you do for everything else. It’s not “do I feel like purging — it’s My 2:00 appointment says purging time, so I’ll do it.” Stop thinking that it has to be fun to start — it never will be. It will be fun when you finish, and things are organized/clear/etc.
Schedule the time so that you have a reward at the end. Do it for 1 hour then watch TV or read or eat lunch, etc. Or do it in chunks — Do 1 drawer then X or this pile then X.
See if you can do the purging in a different place than your office. Somehow purging on the patio or in the sunshine is less arduous (says the woman trying to read and sort 3600 dots!)
Great music helps!
Keep a pile of what you’ve purged (i.e.: don’t take it to recycling/shredding right away) so you can see progress even though it won’t feel like there is any.
Depending on the state of things, you may need to sort then prioritize — put things into piles by category, THEN read and purge. (For example, when I cleaned out my Mom’s office, I quickly sorted things by insurance, utilities, medical records, etc. – tossing the very old insurance benefit booklets and obvious recycling as I went – but saved the purging that required thought until a second round after the piles were sorted.)
Only keep things where you’re the source. If you have a lot of minutes or documents from work or volunteering, I’d ditch those and rely on the organization to supply them if ever needed.
As I said in my dot, I keep things in small folders — each topic has its own so I can find them again. Shopping for office supplies (colored folders, etc.) can make the task more fun but don’t get hung up on logistics of “what goes in the red folder?” etc. As you can see in the picture, my folders are ragged, handwritten, reused — and work perfectly.
Whether it’s with purging or any other daunting task, I guess my best advice is to stop seeing it as “a lot.” As Anne Lamott wrote: “bird by bird” — one step then the next. You don’t have a lot to do; you have a little to do a lot of times. You could complete the first “little” in the time you spend avoiding doing “a lot.”
When I started my first professional job, I took an empty box that held reams of paper and covered it in contact paper, making it my first filing “cabinet.” As rudimentary as it was, the box served as a useful way to collect, organize, and, most importantly, retrieve handouts or resources that I would later use for inspiration or workshop material.
Many years later, that same system has morphed into 39 boxes, some of which have contents older than the people I am sharing them with. What has worked for me over the years is to not only save materials but to create a separate file folder for each topic, no matter how small. If it’s a key article that I use repeatedly, it has its own folder so I can easily find it. If it’s one article on something new, it starts from scratch, too. There’s nothing lofty about it — reused file folders, handwritten titles, Post-its to label the boxes, etc., but this system has allowed me to begin content development from something, never having to face the dreaded blank piece of paper that is sure to cause a creative block.
I take my method for granted since I’ve been doing it for so long, but it was brought to consciousness by author Dan Pink. He isn’t a resource-hoarder like I am, but he shared that he gets an empty box when he is just beginning to consider a new project. Then when he discovers resources as his idea incubates, he tosses them into the box — books, articles, etc. Once he’s ready to get serious about writing, he has a ready-made collection of places to start.
If you’re not proficient and devoted to one of the sophisticated and powerful tools that are now available to help with the curation process, give the humble box method a try. It has saved me (as well as saved my resources) so many times, proving over and over that it’s much easier to turn something into something more.
A different skill set is required to create something as compared to improving it. If you are focused on making something that exists better, the focus is on the output. If you aim to develop something new, the effort should be concentrated on the inputs — the people, vision, infrastructure, culture — all those need to be aligned in order to be successful.
Unfortunately, too many organizations are interested in short-term wins and immediately visible results. Leaders want to see quick evidence that can be bragged about — tangible signs that changes are occurring — but in an inaugural effort, those benchmarks often come much later in the process. The real work occurs before any outward changes are seen.
If you’re asked to champion a process to create something new, begin by setting clear expectations about the time it is likely to take. There are no easy ways to innovate or embed adaptive changes in an organization. Don’t let your enthusiasm override your thinking and cause you to believe otherwise.
Different skills are required to improve the one on the left vs starting from scratch on the right
In anticipation of the holidays, I spent an entire day writing an advance posting of dots for the week. It felt like a massive expenditure of time to invest in the project and I wondered whether it was worth the effort.
However, when I think about it, I’m sure I actually dedicated less time per dot by writing them in a batch. The efficiencies of having all my materials out, getting in that “writing groove”, and having a list of ideas rather than spending time thinking of them individually made the overall process more productive.
It’s often easier to do things bit by bit but sometimes you’re better off devoting a big chunk of time to really get something done. You could clean the garage one shelf at a time but be more efficient hauling everything out onto the driveway and doing it all at once. You might write one paragraph of a report but save time by closing your office door and crafting the whole thing. An afternoon of concentrating on filing your taxes may actually take less time than doing it in stages.
The hardest part of a big task is getting started on it. Once you do, try mightily to keep going until it’s done.
So much of our routine business is conducted on autopilot, not because our current providers are necessarily excellent rather because it is too much of a hassle to change them. Think about your health insurance, car/home insurance, banking, phone network, cable, internet, doctors, subscriptions, software, retirement savings or investments – most likely they are with the same institutions you have been using for years. We often allow things to renew automatically without further investigation because of the time it takes to do something else.
While we don’t have the bandwidth to research every decision or spend the time canceling and adding every time a service comes up for renewal, it is likely worth the effort to make some conscious decisions to do so on occasion. It’s also worth considering the long-term cost when you choose any on-going provider, whether that be a subscription or service professional. It may be tempting to jump at the low-cost introductory offer but remember they are counting on you to continue when the discount expires because you don’t want to take the time to wait in their customer service queue to cancel.
But if you are the provider and not just the consumer, allow the “it’s-hard-to-change” principle to work in your favor. Make your initial encounter enticing enough to get the consumer started on an automatic renewal program and enhance your chances that they’ll stick with you for the long term.
That first step has disproportionate value for everyone.
