Do It. Do It Now!

The government funds studies everything from toe fungus to migratory birds, but there is nothing in the budget for the really important stuff, like how did my To Do list get to be two pages long?

Now that would be my tax dollars well spent.

I have to believe that the old adage "Touch it once" is as true today as when it was a new adage, if there is such a thing. The idea is not to put something aside to be accomplished later. Instead, either do it immediately or don't do it all.

In following up with the people who download my free White Papers, such as "How to Make Seven Calls a Day" and "The Sales Calendar " and "Why Aren’t You Selling More? " it’s remarkable how often someone recalls downloading it but never actually reading it.

Maybe our attention spans are getting awfully short.

Perhaps there’s not enough whitespace on the document and it does not give off a message that says, "Easy to read."

Or maybe in the time it took for the e-mail that contains the link to download the PDF of the White Paper, something shiny appeared within eyesight and called the reader away.

What would your To Do list look like if, instead of adding a task on the next line at the bottom, you either achieve the task or delete it entirely? Part of what makes a highly efficient day a highly efficient day is that we choose one of these two options rather than making a long list a longer list.

Apply Parreto’s Law here:

80 percent of your profitable activities come from 20 percent of the items on your To Do list. If that’s the case, the vast majority of those tasks need to get deleted.

Make a note to do that.

Bill Farquharson is a Vice President at Epicomm. His training programs can drive the sales of print reps and selling owners. Check out his Sales Resources page and contact him at (781) 934-7036 or bfarquharson@epicomm.org