Aaron Hoos

A QUICK UPDATE ON WHERE I WAS
My wife goes to a conference every year or two and I like to go with her to get a change of scenery. Last year, the conference was in Minneapolis and I sat in the hotel and worked and swam in the pool. This year, she was at a related conference in a resort, spa, and conference center in rural Manitoba. It’s a nice place — there’s a mineral spa and the food is really good and it’s billed as a 4 star resort — but their wifi was terrible. I got some work done but extremely little because I couldn’t get online for more than a few minutes. (It’s weird because they call themselves a “conference center” and they have conference facilities but perhaps their conference attendees don’t need a reliable wireless connection).

Having an inadequate connection gave a mixed result: I didn’t get a lot of my planned client work done: I couldn’t access their files or websites or research. And I’ve got a Countdown to the Olympics blog series that I couldn’t post!

I DID GET SOME WORK DONE
I couldn’t access the web but I had some other files on my laptop, along with some pen and paper, and I jammed out a whole bunch of work on other projects.

Productivity: There are a couple of bottlenecks in my workflow that I need to address, so I brought David Allen’s Getting Things Done book. I read the book a couple of years ago while doing related work for a client. At that time I tried to adopt his practices into my business but it didn’t fit exactly and ended up creating considerably more work than it solved: It’s not unusual for me to take on several projects in a day and complete them the same day. I found myself writing a number of things on my projects list, completing the projects, and crossing them off an hour or two later, creating a very messy and confusing project list that needed updating more frequently than his weekly reivew.

But recently I decided to re-read Allen’s book and see how I could take some of his ideas and augment them for myself. Part of the solution had to do with creating 3 project lists: “Daily activities” (which includes marketing work and overruns); “Open-ended projects” (which are projects that clients have on standing order that I just need to produce every day); and “On-demand projects” (which are one-time projects that have a clear finish-line).

My book: I’ve been thinking about a book for a while. I have the subject and a rough outline but there are a few steps that need to happen before I actually sit down and write. But those steps weren’t formalized until this week. That’s a good project crossed off my list!

Other projects: I also have a number of really big projects planned for my business in 2010 and they needed some thinking time to iron them out. And this week was good for that.

I ALSO GOT SOME PLAY TIME
My wife and I went with two other couples and we hung out a lot. Good times: Hot tub and some poker.

NOW I’M BACK TO WORK
I had big plans this week to get a lot of work done but the wifi set me back. Although I got some personal projects done — and important ones at that — I have a big list of client projects to take care of ASAP! (If you’re reading this and you’re my client, your name is likely on that list!).

Also, I have this set of Countdown blogs I’ve been writing and I’m 6 days behind! I thought about just starting from here and moving forward, and leaving a big gaping hole in my countdown, but my aesthetic sense couldn’t handle that. So I’m going to write and back-date the blogs so we have a nice clean countdown.

In 10 days*, the 2010 Winter Olympic athletes will compete to be the best in the world. Entrepreneurs compete for a similar pinnacle of success every single day. This series of blogs will countdown to the Olympics with 31 ideas about what it takes to achieve gold in your business.

To be an Olympic-level entrepreneur, you need to slow down only after you’ve crossed the finish line.

Olympic athletes in speed-measured sports (like speed skating, as opposed to judged sports like figure skating) know that competing in a race means two things: (1) Getting up to speed as quickly as possible; (2) Maintaining that speed through the finish line. Racers in every sport know that you shouldn’t slow down in front of the finish line. Slowing down ahead of the finish line lets others speed past you. It’s like fighting in martial arts: The most effective punch is one that tries to strike 6 inches behind the subject. And, it’s like an effective swing in golf: The greatest distance is achieved when the player has a good follow-through.

Olympic-level entrepreneurs have a similar opportunity for greater success by charging full-speed ahead and not slowing down. When you sit down to work, your focus should be on a few key things that you do well and you need to work on doing those things with excellence throughout the day. It can be tempting, as you cross off goals throughout your day or as you reach a certain level of success in your career, to pull back a bit. But dialing your effort down isn’t the best thing to do until after you’ve surpassed the goals you’ve set for yourself.

* Disclosure: I was traveling recently and didn’t always have access to the internet, so I missed a couple of publishing dates. This blog has been published and back-dated to keep the countdown sequential.