As a kid, I always promised myself I’d start Christmas shopping earlier and earlier in the year. As a result, I never managed to finish buying my gifts until the 22nd or 23rd. One year I even found myself shopping on the morning of the 24th! I don’t know why, but my younger self seemed to thrive on the stress of last-minute shopping. It was exciting, and tiring at the same time. Hence the annual promise to “start earlier next year.”
This year I finally put away silly promises to myself and committed to being a last-minute shopper. I stopped reading the ads and even hid my credit cards away to make sure I didn’t spend hours planning the perfect gift, only to be disappointed when they were sold out or on back order. Everyone else hit the Black Friday rush and started planning their holiday hauls, and I say idly by, knowing that to start planning meant I’d start procrastinating.
And here I find myself, on the 15th of December … with my presents already wrapped and under the tree.
Yes, it turns out I actually finished my Christmas shopping last Friday, a full two weeks before the big day! Who knew that not thinking about the big task would lead to finishing it so far ahead of schedule?
That got me thinking. How many times have I put off big projects until the last minute solely due to the fact that I spent so much time thinking about them and creating stress? I can’t even begin to count that high. Every last-minute term paper. Every rushed laboratory assignment. Every midnight printer run. Almost every time I’ve had a big project on my plate I spend hours thinking about how hard it will be and lose those hours to history.
On the other hand, there are just as many times where I skipped the pity party and just got down to business. I remember term papers finished a whole month ahead of time. Presentations finished, rehearsed, and polished with plenty of time for a weekend at the beach to celebrate. I even remember one math project I thought I’d forgotten, only to find the completed assignment in my notebook (I had finished it 3 weeks early and forgotten I’d done it at all!).
This translates perfectly to business. Many times we look at a marketing plan or a product design and waste precious time and manpower counting the ways things could go wrong and the obstacles between us and completion. Rather than focusing on the journey, though, a conscious effort to focus instead on the destination often finds us reaching it more quickly and in a better state of mind.
If I can finish my Christmas shopping 2 weeks early stress free, just imagine what wonders that mindset would work on my next web project!
