Chasing
Rabbits
--Leaders do not get distracted from their
purpose
Are rabbits dangerous? A farmer went to town
in his wagon and had his dog running alongside.
Every few hundred yards the dog would take off
chasing a rabbit into the woods. Then, a few
minutes later, he'd join back up with the wagon.
Over and over this happened. When the farmer
finished the six-mile trip in to town, one
storekeeper looked at the dog that was panting
heavily, staggering, barely able to walk and
commented that must have been a really long, hard
trip. "Look," he said. "It darn near killed your
dog."
The farmer replied, "It wasn't the trip that
almost killed my dog. It was the rabbits."
Think about that. Have you been having a hard
time with your business? What rabbits have you
been chasing?
Perhaps you allowed an unexpected phone call
to take you on a side-trip that wasted 10 minutes,
and got you no further progress toward your main
goal for the day. Perhaps you got hung up doing
paperwork that really didn't benefit the bottom
line.
Many people think they work hard because they
have lots of activities, but very few of them
really are those key activities that generate
revenue.
I have heard that salespeople spend only 30
percent of their time actually in front of a
potential customer. How productive is that?
Maybe you allowed yourself to be upset with a
family member and got caught up in the 3Rs:
Resentment, Resistance, Revenge. A half-hour of
precious quality time after work was wasted
instead of creating the exciting relationship you
both wanted.
Suggestion: For the next week, make a
list at the end of each day of all the rabbits you
chased. Estimate how much time and energy it cost
you. Cut a picture out of a magazine of a rabbit
and put it on your desk.
Commit to not chasing rabbits. It's not what
you are willing to do that determines your
success, it's what you are not willing to do.
TAKEAWAY!
Distractions are killer rabbits. They seem
harmless, but they kill your goals as sure as
anything else.
Action Step #1
Buy a little rabbit figurine and put it on
your desk or on your kitchen counter where you
will see it frequently. At the end of every day
this week, write one page listing any and all
rabbits you chased that day. Then write down what
you could have done with that time.
Action Step #2
Make a list of five key activities that
generate the most productivity and that have the
biggest pay off for you in your job. Your job
could be as a manager, a parent, a clerk, a
salesperson, or a student. Commit to doing more of
those as well as less chasing rabbits.
An Example
Technology is great. So many of the advances
we have today have helped us do more in less time,
yet some of the advantages turn out to like
chasing rabbits.
One of my favorite examples is e-mail. Every
15 minutes my computer can automatically send and
receive my e-mail. I don't have to think about it.
A tone sounds and a message appears in the corner
of my screen that tells me, "You have mail."
The problem is that I would always stop and
see what e-mail just came in. Chasing rabbits.
When I turned that e-mail off and only paid
attention to sending and receiving e-mail at the
specific times I set aside for that purpose, I was
amazed at how much more I was getting done.
Think of your own examples of chasing
technology rabbits in your work and life?
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