TIP 37
DO IT NOW!
He who hesitates is last.
Responding immediately is attractive because it is very rare even though it seems so obvious. It is so rare because most people procrastinate. In fact, you may need to upgrade systems, streamline, and change your whole manner of responding to people in order to provide an immediate response.
How can you respond immediately? My mantra is “Do it now.” When I catch myself holding a piece of paper and thinking, “I’ll look at this later …” I say, “No, do it now.” If I don’t, I end up wasting time shuffling papers around.
I received an e-mail notice that the boyfriend of one of my colleagues had passed away. When I first opened the message, I thought about sending a sympathy card. Then I caught myself postponing the activity because of all of the other work I knew I had to do. But I stopped myself and said, “Do it now!” So, I wrote a note on the spot, and it was done. I deleted the e-mail instead of saving it to handle another day or, worse yet, forgetting about it.
My client, Rebecca, had recently moved into Manhattan and was working as a salesclerk at a clothing store. The prospects for advancement weren’t great, so she began looking for a career in the fashion world. She was looking through the job ads in the New York Times and found one for a position with Giorgio Armani. The deadline for applications was that very day. She immediately typed up a résumé and faxed it over. Then she decided she would follow up to make sure it had been received. Did she just pick up the phone? No, she walked over to the store on Madison Avenue and very politely let the human resources manager know that she had just sent over her résumé. Rebecca knew that her personal appearance and gracious manner were her greatest assets—attributes that would not be seen on the résumé. The store manager was impressed with her immediate and personal response. This is the kind of personal attention that their high-end customers would demand. They were willing to give her a chance even though she had only three months of retail experience in New York, and they were looking for someone with three years of experience. After a week of interviews, she got the job and jumped from a dead-end job paying minimum wage to earning over $50,000 a year.
I like productivity expert David Allen’s refinement of this tip. In his book, Getting Things Done, Allen explains his “two-minute rule”—if something can be handled in two minutes or less, just do it. The time it takes to file it or log it and then retrieve it at a later date would take about two minutes, so you are better off doing it right away than postponing until later. However, if the task will take more than two minutes, now may not be the best time to handle it, and you can put it in an action folder or file. This makes perfect sense from an efficiency standpoint; process your work first, and then tackle the actions. If it can be handled on the spot, just do it and be done with it.
One of my clients came up with another solution. She figured out how long it takes on average to process her e-mail in-box and makes sure she allocates that time in her schedule every day. If you normally need two hours to handle and respond to your e-mails or in-box, make sure you have a two-hour slot booked into your day or you’ll quickly fall behind. Or better yet, try doing it in half the time (Tip 34).
Where are you delaying? It may be costing you unnecessary time and energy. Anything you don’t do now is something you will just have to do later. If you wait, the thought of having to do it will be taking up valuable mental space, and you will be burdened with the weight of trying to remember to do it later. If you can’t do it now, put it in an action file or flag it as “To-Do” in your in-box and log the time and date that you will do it on your calendar or tickler file. What changes do you need to make to restructure your life so that you can respond immediately? You may want to post a little sign over your desk that says, “Do it now!”