Lack of clarity will kill your productivity, no question about it.
As you’re starting and running your business, how often do you ask yourself, “What should I do next?,” or “What was I working on again”? For many people, the answer is: Very often!
To illustrate the point of just how insidious a productivity killer lack of clarity can be, think for a moment of a time you were in a city and you were trying to get to a particular street address, either in a car or on foot. There are several ways you could have approached this problem, among them:
1.) Drive or walk aimlessly around the city hoping to stumble upon the street, then go to the particular number;
2.) Ask or look for a few landmarks before setting out on your journey, then drive or walk until you see those landmarks, then locate the street and the particular number;
3.) Take someone with you who knows the exact location of the address you’re seeking;
4.) Use GPS, plug in the exact address and let the GPS guide you there;
5.) See if the address is one you’ve already been to or near another one you’ve already visited;
6.) And so on.
There are likely many other ways you could have employed to get to the exact address you were seeking to reach. Some of those would have been more “productive” than others, or more effective we may say, and some may have been more efficient (i.e. get you to the desired destination more quickly).
As you can see from these distinctions between productivity, effectiveness and efficiency, it’s almost always a good idea to decide what you’re trying to achieve before setting out on your journey.
Are you simply trying to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible? If so, you’ll probably want to use GPS, as in addition to having the shortest routes already programmed in, it also can tell you the traffic en route at that specific moment.
If it’s not all about speed, but also about learning about the area through which you’ll travel, you may want to take a person who knows the way, who has been on this journey before and can give you color commentary during the trip. This would likely make the trip more interesting and give you tidbits of knowledge that you’ll be able to use not just on this trip, but other similar ones you’ll be taking in the future.
If it’s not at all about speed and more about learning as much as possible about the terrain you’re about to travel, then maybe you just want to travel “aimlessly,” either having studied a few landmarks beforehand, or not. Some of the most memorable and interesting journey’s you’re likely to take in life may occur when you don’t start out with much of a plan and have little time pressure with which to contend.
The above points about navigating from Point A to Point B productively, effectively and efficiently can be extended to starting and growing a business as well. You may have significant lack of clarity when you start a business, perhaps even to the point of not knowing what exact business you want to start. In other words, beyond not even knowing the exact address you want to reach, you may not even know exactly where you’re starting.
If you don’t know where you’re starting or where you want to end up when you start your business, that makes it very difficult to use tools along the lines of GPS, which require a starting point and and ending point to work effectively. In order to know your starting point, you’ll want to screen your business ideas. In order to have at least some idea of your destination, you’ll want to put a business plan together and map out where you want your venture to be in the coming years.
In all cases, though, given the complexity and dynamic nature of starting and growing a business, you’ll need to be capable of making and have a willingness to make course corrections as you go. The equivalent of GPS is hardly ever available in starting and growing a business (i.e. you’ll hardly ever be able to take the most direct route from Point A to Point B), so you’ll need to be willing and able to enjoy the journey, learn as you go, and course correct as your business grows. To the extent you can, take others with you on the journey, particularly those who have “seen this movie before” and can help you navigate what will always be challenging waters in a startup, but which ultimately can deliver huge rewards, from both a personal and financial growth perspective.
Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay
