Last month I was sitting in a local pub with a good friend. He was stressing about the fact that he had an important wedding anniversary on the horizon and that there was some expectation from his better half that plans were put in place to celebrate it…and that the plans should involve a weekend away!
His problem was that he didn’t really know where to start.
- Where should they go?
- How much should he spend?
- Should he make it a long weekend?
- Should he consider abroad?
- Who would look after the kids?
Now, it wasn’t although he didn’t realise that when he got married nearly 10 years ago there wouldn’t be a “ten year” celebration. He also knew this was going to happen a year ago, 6 months ago, and 3 months ago…but here he was, with less than two weeks to go, and he’d still done nothing about it.
Why?
Well, we all put things off when we are not too sure what we have to do. It’s just the easy option. So, how do we get going? How do we give the task some momentum?
It’s simple.
Just ask yourself “what is the next action?”
In my friends case the next action was to visit a travel agent in his lunch break on the Monday morning. On the train journey home that evening he had a briefcase full of brochures and ideas. At last he felt he was getting somewhere. By the Wednesday he had booked a luxury weekend cottage in Lake District.
And what is the moral of this story?
If you are faced with a large or complex problem, ask yourself “what is the next action?” Make a start, get some momentum and avoid procrastination.
Good luck