[Your aspirations going up in smoke once again?]

The 20 Common Mistakes with Getting Things Done Part One

Getting off track with getting things done is incredibly easy because so many other things exist that are easier to do in the moment. In order to protect yourself from getting easily distracted and to prevent yourself from feeling the low key negative emotions that tend to spark off procrastination then take care to manage yourself well by avoiding these common mistakes:

1. Lack of acceptance - Real world results and what we would like to have happened often don’t match up and so we fail to meet our desires exactly as we would like. The result of this is some level of negative emotion ranging from low level disappointment to outright despair, depending upon the mismatch between reality and desire. We often make life difficult for ourselves by refusing to accept the reality that has occurred. Instead we find it tempting to beat ourselves up over such things or else to deny the reality that has occurred (often attributing it to the fault of fate, other people, other things or anything except for our own lack of ability or unrealistic expectations). The best thing to do is to accept reality. This hurts for the uninitiated but it does have a cathartic and cleansing effect. We often feel massive relief when we accept our reality. Part of that relief comes from recognizing that there is nothing bad about us and that instead we simply desired something too strongly that we could not deliver. The moment has passed so accept the reality and either start again or seek a different desire.
2. Lack of forgiveness - Closely allied with acceptance, we can scuttle ourselves by not forgiving ourselves for failing to achieve a desired result. This becomes another type of denial that only blocks us from seeing what the real problem was (a lack of ability to achieve the desire) and finding ways to overcome it or work around it. When we forgive ourselves we accept ourselves and our limitations and we can turn our minds back to solving the problem rather than denying the lack of ability.
3. Planning to use things that you don’t have - If you depend upon things that you don’t have in order to fulfill your desires then you immediately design in a big block to progress. That could be money, time, people, technologies, skills and knowledge. Seek ways to get around this block using a combination of other abilities or finding a substitute solution. That solution might prove slower and more difficult but if it gets you your desire then it’s a better option than just grinding to a halt and fuming. If no alternative exists then make overcoming that block job number one. Everything else that you do will be in vain if you don’t find a way past that block so why even bother wasting your time?
4. Depending upon experience that you don’t have - Very similar to the above only more difficult to quantify and hence to factor in and rely upon. You will have to do a lot of research and development and experimentation (i.e. getting a lot of undesired results before developing the ability to get and control the outcome that you want) before you have dependable experience. Have a very clear awareness of the impact of experience upon your likelihood of getting what you want and accept that you have to set aside a lot of time and effort to developing experience if you truly want the result that you seek.
5. Too much focus on end results instead of the process that creates those results - We often get started on something because we feel excited and juiced by the end result that we hope to get. However, wanting something is never enough. We have to develop the capability to deliver that result. It is the process that we use to deliver the end result that we must focus upon and not the end result itself. By making the process doable and enjoyable and rewarding in and of itself we strongly enhance our chances of delivering the final result. If we do things only for the end result we often fail because we find the process of delivering it too hard and it is simply easier to go off and do easier things.
6. Too much checking and reporting and not enough action - Only the completion of process steps can move you closer to your desired result. Too much analysis often leads to analysis paralysis. You end up devoting too much time and effort to reporting on progress rather than doing anything that creates progress. You get behind and then carry out analysis but through carrying out that analysis you get even further behind and then feel even more pressure to catch up in some way. I see this more and more in my professional life.
7. Not learning from your mistakes - It’s painful to make a mistake and it’s even more painful to make that mistake again and again and again. Rather then putting it down to misfortune stop and ask this question: “What can or could I do to make sure that this never, ever happens again?” That’s one of the most powerful questions that you can ever ask yourself. It urges prevention and in seeking to make sure that it never ever happens again it promotes going back to the root cause of problems. Tackle those all important issues and you can kiss goodbye to a lot of irritating problems permanently!
8. Not quitting soon enough - A lot of things just don’t go right from the beginning. I find this especially true with working for a new company or on a new project but also for starting in new areas of personal development and also for relationships with new people. Generally speaking, the trend is your friend and it indicates how things are likely to continue. It takes the influence of a great number of factors to reverse a trend and unless the possibilities and reasons for doing so are incredibly solid then don’t expect things to change. Take stock of the situation and cut your losses quickly and early rather than hobble yourself by sticking with things that divert you from better alternatives.
9. Not persisting long enough - Once you do create or find yourself in a favorable situation then remain aware of the fact that it still takes time to develop all of the competencies and processes needed to excel in whatever you end up doing. Again, focus on processes and not upon end results. Simply through staying the course and continually improving you will more often than not end up with excellent final results. Few people persist and continue growing for the long-haul. Just by staying the course you end up a contender but you still might not get exactly what you want. [I don’t subscribe to the idea that if you never quit then you are guaranteed to succeed. No one can guarantee that and we generally only hear about the rare success stories of success happening after long effort rather than the more common story of no success at all.]
10. Publicizing fragile creations before they have life of their own - Announcing to the world that you have done something or committed to a course of action before actually proving real and robust progress and results builds up a lot of public expectation that will weigh heavily on your mind. Supporters will have high expectations that you might find difficult to fulfill. Detractors will look for fault and potential failure and point it out to you, which will prove easy to do with unproven and weak developments. Either way, you end up layering on expectations that you cannot with certainty fulfill or disprove. This just adds an easily avoidable aspect of extra stress. You can totally avoid this by reigning back your enthusiasm and only going public once you have something robust in place and by only promoting it as capable of doing things that it definitely can do. I advocate doing or delivering things in public that are only within 80% of your real capabilities. That means that you can do things competently and you will thus do them confidently. In addition, it becomes easier to delight and surprise people by delivering an extra 10% because you definitely have that extra 10% in the bag. Never go public with weak abilities promoted to their full extent. You will more likely end up humiliating yourself and you can easily avoid doing that.

Just for good measure, here’s the list in full. Copy it and print it out and then refer to it when you find yourself blocked and tempted to bunk off. The key to unlocking your little problem lies within these factors.

1. Insufficient preparation
2. Not making things sufficiently easy to do
3. Unproven processes
4. Unproven products
5. No processes, standards and guidelines in place
6. Mixing tasks that don’t mix together well
7. Overwhelm
8. Solving the wrong problem
9. Failing to adapt when circumstances change
10. Unrealistic desires and expectations
11. Lack of acceptance
12. Lack of forgiveness
13. Planning to use things that you don’t have
14. Depending upon experience that you don’t have
15. Too much focus on end results instead of the process that creates those results
16. Too much checking and reporting and not enough action
17. Not learning from your mistakes
18. Not quitting soon enough
19. Not persisting long enough
20. Publicizing fragile creations before they have life of their ownDo you have any other things to add to the list? I’m interested to know.

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