Working in and Working on the Business

There are times when you are working toward a goal and your current productivity system is working. You may, however, begin to see that your system for getting things done is not good enough. Consider that whenever you entertain new ideas about how things could be better, you are considering some form of change. The current status is not good enough, so you are looking to change something. Regarding change, a critical distinction for your success in business is knowing when you are working in the business and when you are working on the business. You know you are working in the business when you're doing the day-to-day tasks and activities, the stuff that just keeps coming at you, such as

things you promised,
calls you need to make,
reports you have to complete,
projects you're working on, and
meetings you need to attend.

Isn't it true that these go on and on throughout the day? When we are doing these things, we claim that we are working in the business. We are carrying out day-to-day activities by doing the tasks and delivering on the commitments that make up our business and that produce our income. We could say that the day-to-day stuff is living in the foreground of our awareness; thus, we typically attend to it. If we're diligent, we get things done.

We are okay with this for some period of time, but ideas are buzzing in the background that need to be addressed. These ideas are on the back burner and might include considering increasing sales, opening a new office, working fewer hours, or having someone take over some of your responsibilities. You also might be thinking about having more customers, more income, better ways of getting new clients, or a different way of working with associates and clients. Consider that what is running around in the background is your mind churning through what we call your more, better, and different (MBD) list. These could also be called the wants and desires that live as thoughts or ideas — or even dreams for your future. The key point here is that in this moment these MBDs live only as ideas, yet they are precursors to deciding to go into action. When you go into action addressing one of these items, we say you are now working on the business, rather than in it.

From Ideas to Action

So how do you move ideas from the background into the foreground so that you can begin to see these items more clearly? In other words, how do you begin to get clear on those items you might want to take some action on, rather than have them buzzing around creating anxiety and down moods because you just never get going on any of them? As a first step, you can simply list them, so that now they are living in a documented form, rather than just as background ideas. Sounds simple, and it is. But how often do we take the time to document our ideas? Once you have documented or listed your ideas, you are on your way. However, at this point, good, hardworking people typically roll up their sleeves and get to work on the items, overlooking a key step.

We have found that the next step, prioritizing your documented items, is often overlooked. The big difference between working in the business and working on the business is that when you are working on the business it is difficult to make a priority, because it doesn't seem crucial to the business's ability to run smoothly, whereas the mundane stuff always does. When you don't prioritize according to the importance of each idea, you then live in what we call ideas land, a place in the mind where all ideas are good ideas and everything gets addressed, often leading to a shortage of resources, frustration, and breakdown.

The problem with ideas land is that not all ideas are good ideas, and as a result, this becomes the land of no action where nothing gets done.

Consider that if you don't prioritize, you are committing the sin of thinking you can do everything that's on your mind at any given moment. In our organizational therapy jargon, this is a cognitive distortion, another way of saying that your thinking is messed up. Good luck!

Steve Jobs allegedly said, "People think focus means saying yes to the things you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas."

If you have taken our advice and prioritized — congratulations, you are now ready to take action on your first item.

But wait ... something is afoot.

It turns out that there is a good reason you don't take action on these items by addressing them. Why is that? Because the very moment you address even one of your ideas and decide to go into action, you're unwittingly shifting out of working in the business to now working on the business. In other words, you're considering, without realizing it, adding extra work to your already too-busy schedule.

We know all of you have more than enough to do without adding one more action item. A perfect example of this in another area of your life is deciding to remodel your kitchen or your entire house. You may not realize at the time you decide to take on this new project that none of your other responsibilities will have magically disappeared. Shortly, however, the realization of what this new project means to your time and energy becomes painfully apparent. Talk to people who have just had their first child. Often what happens here is that all the things that seemed important — dishes, cleaning, errands — fall by the wayside, and they end up very disorganized as a result, because getting used to caring for the child takes over all of their focus.

The other thing you need to know is that the human mind, relatively speaking, only takes a nanosecond and little energy to think of something new to do but eons and loads of energy to do it. This reminds us of the guy who, in response to his CEO coming up with yet another project, said, "Anything can be done by the guy who doesn't have to do it." Later on you will see that there is a way to deal with this when you fill in the energy/resources section of your project template we'll provide. But we're...