“How in the world did you ever get caught up?”

A smart-awesome-cool-friend-who-shall-not-be-named emailed recently and asked:

One question for you, if you don’t mind elaborating a bit – when you say this – In most cases, we’re working ahead. It’s amazing how this lowers your stress level.

How in the world did you ever get “caught up” much less ahead? Did you let go of things? Buckle down and just do the work? Hire extra help?

I guess I was just under the impression that “caught up” was an illusion because we would never be able to accomplish all we wanted to. But on the flipside, it contributes to SO much stress, that I feel like there has to be a better way.

It’s a great question. I’m going to give you a couple ways, but mostly I hired my sister, Lynn. She’s a systems ninja. She was able to evaluate and fix. Because you’re kinda awesome, I asked Lynn to add her thoughts at the end.

A) Identify the bottlenecks. What keeps things from getting done? In most cases, I was the bottleneck. There are simply things I’m not good at – while for other things I’m one of the best in the world. I surrounded myself with people (Lynn, Ryan, Dee) who excel at the things I’m not good at.

B) Build at-a-glance annual calendars for our clients. We know the ebbs and flows of most business categories. We can plan accordingly.

C) Go hard in the paint. We worked like crazy. We had a few months of ugliness while we steered the ship around. It was hard, frustrating, long work, and I’m thankful all three saw it through.

D) Just do the next right thing. Once you’ve made your plan, stop messing with the plan. Just do the next thing on your list.

E) Get out of your inbox. Get into your project management software (in our case, Basecamp).

Those are some quick things. Our company is SO MUCH FUN now. I have the first draft of my next book done TWO MONTHS ahead of schedule.

And you know what else? My wife feels like she got her husband back. I’m not obsessing over my phone like I used to – worrying about emails and late projects and malignant tasks.

Margin rocks. Hard.

Lynn adds:

When you are in the thick of things, anything really, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. It sometimes takes an objective outsider with some OCD list-making spread-sheet loving tendencies to help. Not just in business. This afternoon, I am headed over to help a sweet friend with a newish baby and a big job and a house and a husband she is crazy about sort things out. Best thing we can do sometimes is to waive the white flag of surrender. I’ve been there plenty of times.

And the best thing about our company is the mix of personalities and strengths. We rely on Myers Briggs and Strengthsfinder 2.0 to help. It’s a cocktail of pina-colada-like goodness.

I’m signing off now, because I am out of metaphors.