Are you a Business Owner or a Firefighter?
If you're a bit of a Firefighter, I've got some even worse news for you too - you're probably not even a good Firefighter.
It's time to stop putting out the same fires over and over.
Professional firefighters spend maybe 10% of their actual shift fighting fires. The rest is spent training (themselves and others), strategising and preparing to fight fires effectively when the time comes to fight a fire. Professional firefighters want to fight the least amount of fires as possible, as quickly and effectively as possible so as to minimise the damage.
Firefighting has two parts: 1. Responding to and putting out fires 2. When there are no fires, take measures to ensure that there are LESS FIRES.
So if you're stuck in this trap, it's because you're only ever doing half of the job of a firefighter. You're addressing symptoms (the URGENT element) and failing to work to find a cure (the IMPORTANT element).
To break this pattern of continually putting out the same fires, start by working on things that are important but not urgent. While you do this, some tiny fires might even need to burn for a while, but in time the same spot-fire will stop flaring up over and over.
If you're not accustomed to doing this, I'd suggest you start by allocating 1hr per week to work on something in your business or life that is IMPORTANT but not URGENT. Something that you know *should* be addressed.
Setup some baseline measurements so that you can track the impact of this work. Check on it weekly and adjust accordingly. Once you've got one thing under control, do something else IMPORTANT but not URGENT.
Notice how effective it is to stop doing and start observing from time to time. Someone needs to captain the ship after all.
If it's time to do something about it, or you're not sure where to get started, drop me an email or book a 15 minute call to discuss - https://calendly.com/upperlimit/
Onward & upward, Jake
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