Get things done and avoid productivity deficits

If you suffer from one or more of the following, take heart, practical help is at hand. You can now consider each of these problems as an opportunity in waiting.

Difficulty getting started – Initiation Deficit
Can’t keep going when things get tough – Perseverance Deficit
Desire to make a project perfect prevents you from finishing it – Closure Deficit

The Managing Director of a company I worked for years ago had the following notice prominently displayed on his desk: NEXT WEEK WE’VE GOT TO GET ORGANISED. I never saw anyone else display their weakness so prominently. Do you find it difficult to start something new? Many people do. What can you do about it? Just as the Starter at the Race Course needs training, so do you.

A former colleague, a brilliant man, was always starting new ventures. There were many great ideas among them. As soon as they showed signs of being difficult he gave up and started – a new venture. Do you tend to give up at the first hurdle? Another man I knew was such a perfectionist that he never finished a project at all. He worked away into the night, determined to make it perfect, but never got it to the point where he could move it along.

All these three blocks are about discipline. Whatever we do in life we have to balance Gratification with Grind recognising that Grind comes first. Even the most fulfilling job in the world has its moments of boredom and frustration. When you pause on the way up a mountain it is to give you renewed energy to go on, not simply to relax. The relief of resting can be more motivating than the far off reward of conquering the summit.

So how do you change your mind-set to present the greater, but slower reward, as more desirable than the quicker one? It is an act of will-power that requires practice even though the concept is easy to understand. ‘Just do it’ was what Nike said. Easy to say, not so easy to make happen. Our remedy is to get your objectives clear and then put you through a short programme of mobile mentoring specifically linked to the things you are trying to initiate, persevere with or close.

We first ask you to complete a starter questionnaire and study your answers. We make no charge for this. We then put you through a 60 to 90 minute Skype briefing for which you pay S$935. During this briefing we assess your needs for dealing with your particular issues. Once you and we are happy that we can help you, you buy mobile access to us for a series of calls of ten minutes each. The number of calls needed varies from one person to another. On average it takes about twenty.

Your calls to us will all be about starting, persevering or closing something. They may cover a number of subjects or they may concentrate on one. Your Terrific Mentor refocuses your mind to the reward value of what you are doing and deflects you from distracting.

Oh, and if you are hesitating about doing this could you perhaps be suffering from severe Initiation Deficit?

In that case you’d better get on with it!

To get your starter questionnaire write to mentors@terrificmentors.com