Fortune favors those who hold on tight and won’t let go. But sometimes blindly following after fortune will lead you to a trap.
Time pits are the invisible traps of quicksand that drain away hours a day in the pursuit of useless results.
Given that there are only so many hours in a day and week, we need to spend our time wisely. The problem is what seems wise close up, in retrospect can be a horrible waste. The 30,000 foot version of you does not always steer you clear either.
Take social media for example. This tool has single handedly built and broken many a business. But for each success there are thousands of failures. Some people bet everything only to end up on the short end of the draw.
Social media can easily suck up minutes, hours, days of our lives in a vain attempt to get the right traction and go viral. On the flip side, from a great height, it can seem like social media holds the key to explosive growth. So, which is true?
Sadly, both get to co-exist. Spend 10 minutes here and perhaps you will be a roaring success. Spend 11 minutes or 9 minutes and fade away into cyber oblivion. Or worse, spend 1000’s of minutes and lose track of everything in the pursuit of the single viral key to it all.
Act on your day. Plan the details specifically and follow through. Avoid getting lost in the quicksand and see true business success.
There will always be something new. Something else. And something will always be on fire. Learning to decide if it’s a slow enough fire you can work around it, or if you must put it out now is a learned trait. Something many won’t grasp until it’s too late to fix. The fire is out of control.
Intentionally keeping yourself from being stretched too thin will help keep your business on the right track.
Look to the future and do the tasks that will provide the most gain for the least output. Complete those tasks to 100% or 120%. Feed the 20% of your business that brings success and ignore the 80% that does not.
Only you can determine which quicksand pits you can safely cross through steady work and focus and which will be forever holding you back from tomorrow.