Hey Gang,
I’ve been feeling a bit hectic lately. Yes, even I get that hectic feeling. You know the feeling: too many projects, too little time, days slipping away as things are getting done, but you don’t feel like things are moving forward.
I’m a big list writer; I learned it from my Dad when I was young. As is typical for young people, I revolted against anything parental and stopped listing things out, writing things down, confident that I had so much talent I could “wing it.”
You can imagine the result. I “winged it” straight into a crash landing and quickly learned my parents weren’t so dumb for writing down lists after all.
We use Monday.com as a project management tool, but we are only partially bought in as a team. We use our CRM, even whiteboards, to keep things visual. If it’s on my phone, for instance, I can’t see it. If I can’t see it, it disappears from view, and things start slipping.
While traveling, I get time to think. Though trade show season is over, the travel time had me thinking of the concept of “Overhead.”
Business owners know about overhead. In accounting terms, it’s the taxes, insurance, electric bills, the items that literally and figuratively “Keep the Lights On.”
It’s the unsexy expenses that always run, adding up in the background, no matter the season’s success or distress. They are perpetually hanging “Overhead.”
My angst of late is the overhead in my brain of unfinished projects.
- We’re in the middle of patent and trademark registration, which requires photographs, documents, pictures, and lawyer emails. (This top secret / worst-kept secret product launches from this email in a few weeks – Stay tuned because we’ve focused it on making YOU money!)
- We’ve designed new Super Mega Slide Launch Towers requiring engineers, CAD drafting people, manufacturing coordination, and overseas communications.
- Those fun little piggy rides we’re distributing require a whole new ordering regime for customs, duties, and order tracking within our team.
- We’re finishing the bar and food set-up in our new pole barn. A completely new event on April 27th requires ALL to be done.
This is a season of extras, with all our businesses’ overhead still running in the background. Ever feel like this?
It really generated a lot of angst, and I’m used to being busy. So, I went back to basics and wrote it all down.
The clarification of worry comes in pencil form. I wrote down every project and every single item I could think of for each, and my mind breathed a sigh of relief. Getting all the items out on paper, into lists took the ‘remembering’ part off my brain’s plate.
Sure, there’s still a lot to do, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. In just about 14 days…
- We’d hold the patent.
- The launch towers would become a one-email order.
- Pigs would be sailing through the ports.
- The bar will be built.
…and all that overhead static will quiet.
- What’s hanging over your head?
- What keeps squirreling around endlessly in your mind, keeping you up at night?
- What projects need to be fleshed out and clarified COMPLETELY so you can stop thinking about them and just get to work?
If you are feeling hectic, running from task to task, feeling as if nothing is moving forward, grant yourself the time to write it all down, to get out from under everything hanging over your head.
Relief might be just around the corner.
Have a great week,
Hugh
