Time Management Self Improvement

How much time do you spend on Mastering Your Time?

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Perfectionism and the “paralysis of analysis” are two of the biggest stumbling blocks to success that many people trip over. There is an old adage that says, “Good enough is good enough.” For those wanting to move ahead in their lives, it is a good saying to live by. The way my grandfather always put it was, “Rick, you’ve got to learn to be a B+ person.”

What does that really mean? When I watched my grandfather work (he was a painter and remodeler), I was always amazed at how much he got done and how fast he worked. The end result rarely came close to an A+ job, but the customers were always happy with not only the end result, but also the fact that they didn’t have to wait nearly as long for the job to be done as they would have if it had been a typical contractor.

Yes, there are times when an A+ job is called for, but the law of diminishing returns says that the extra effort required to get there in most cases is not worth it. I started my working life as an Aerospace engineer. I worked on a multitude of NASA projects involving manned space flight. When peoples’ lives are at stake, it is entirely appropriate to get as close to perfection as possible. I was responsible for the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis. We spent months and sometimes years trying to anticipate every conceivable thing that could go wrong - from a hardware failure, to an astronaut flipping switches in the wrong order. We built in redundancy in every system. We had backup plans for every contingency. We tried to anticipate every emergency that might occur. Everything was done by committee and took forever to make decisions.

For the space program it was an entirely appropriate way to work. The problem was that I carried that into my business life when I decided to go out on my known and become an entrepreneur. The end result of that type of exhaustive analysis and striving for perfection was that I rarely got anything started, and on the occasions that I started, I almost never finished. Very few businesses (or jobs, or goals) in this world require that level of perfection.

When people get caught in that trap, it’s much like waiting for all the lights to turn green before you leave home - you will never leave. There are lots of ways that perfectionism manifests itself: Wanting to know the answer to every conceivable question someone might ask you, before you are willing to go out and make a presentation to a potential client; Having to have your desk perfectly organized before you will pick up the phone to call a prospect; Spending hours and hours on your PowerPoint presentation getting all the colors and graphics ‘just right’ in order to avoid actually having to talk to anyone. The list goes on and on.
The 80/20 rule applies in most areas of our lives and businesses and is certainly appropriate when you think about managing your time and accomplishing anything significant. About 80% of the time a B+ job is probably good enough. Learn to recognize the 80%. Learn to ‘triage’ your schedule. Just get the 80% done as quickly as possible. You will accomplish a lot more if you learn to become a B+ person.

Mathematician, Aerospace Engineer, Entrepreneur, Business Owner, Management Consultant, Author, Professional Speaker and creator of multiple training curriculum - A career path that uniquely qualifies Rick to understand and relate to a wide variety of both private and public organizations and the people that make them up. He has consulted most of the Fortune 100 companies.

Rick has been called the “velvet hammer”. He has a way teaching and relating powerful ideas and concepts in such a way that people readily accept their need to change and grow. Rick believes that “If behavior doesn’t change - it isn’t training!”

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