In all my experience of working with thousands business leaders, managers and business people (as well as my own personal experience), there is only ever ONE REASON why things don’t get done…

…someone has decided not to do it.

I’m not being flippant here, it really is…always has been, always will be, for you, for me, for your colleagues, for everyone.

When things are really important to us, we do them, no matter what obstacles are in our way.  We get to the airport on time (well nearly everyone does), we are rarely late for job interviews or important client meetings, we get our salary paid, we make sure someone is there to look after anyone who is dependent on us and we find a way not to miss programmes that we really enjoy.

The trouble is that in business and sometimes in life too, we take on, accept or are given tasks that we don’t rate as critically important.  These often then build up and build up until we feel overwhelmed by them.  This is a fact of life, but there are easy, practical ways to deal with this better:

1. Connect with a strong vision: when we have a crystal clear view of what we want to achieve both personally and in business, it becomes a lot easier to say “no” to things that don’t really need to be done and those things that do have to be done, but that you don’t particularly look forward to, get prioritised because you connect with their importance.  You need to remind yourself of your vision regularly (95% of people cannot just do this in their head).  If you are a leader in the North West of the UK, come along to our free event, 8:45am to 10am, on Tuesday 22nd January 2013 over at Daresbury during which you’ll start to apply a great tool that helps connect you with your vision without taking up much time (and also hear what 50 other business leaders do) – to reserve your place go to http://creating-time-for-leaders.eventbrite.co.uk.  If you are not a business leader or can’t make it, why not come to our free webinar from 1pm to 1:45pm on Tuesday 8th January 2013 – to reserve your place go to http://time-effective.com.

2. Get organised: carrying actions / ideas round in your head, re-processing e-mails, looking at documents twice, leaving important tasks hanging over you for weeks, delegating poorly, getting the right people with the right skills in place and running meetings inefficiently are all easy wins.  Take a moment to reflect on which of these you are not doing and resolve to do something about it.

3. Connect with a strong vision: yes, it really is that important!