How to get rid of 90% of your life’s problems.. Guaranteed.

In Peter Drucker’s book “The Essential Drucker” he brings up an interest point. Something that I have come to see as a fact: the best businesses are predictable. Early in his career as a consultant he had to figure out a way to see whether a factory was well run during a site visit. Essentially, he had about 30-45 minutes to figure out whether everything was right. He invented a simple but brilliant test: the best run factories were boring while the worst run factories had “activity” going on all the time.

The poor run factories were full of “activity” generally because they were putting out fires.

Drucker found that over 90% of company’s problems systematically occur and are not “unique” problems. A well run company realizes this and puts in controls and systems to account for this. For example, the retail industry systematically prepares itself for the holiday season. Can you imagine what would happen if companies were not ready for the holiday season?
What I soon started to realize was that this type of thinking could be applied to our personal lives. In fact, I realized that I have applied this for several years to consistently drive down my stress and anxiety.
Unfortunately, most people do not apply this type of thinking in their lives. They routinely stress about things such as household chores, what to do with the kids, etc. Unavoidable facts of life, right?
Wrong. All this worrying and stress can be prevented by following these simple rules:

1) Make rules (taken from Paradox of Choice):
The idea that we stress out about issues is misguided. We actually stress out about having to decide on issues. If we don’t make rules about events/situations we have to constantly “decide” to act a certain way. It is like a person waiting in line for lunch 25 minutes before a flight deciding second by second whether he should leave or not.
The way to avoid this situation is to make a rule. If I am not served within 15 minutes of flight time I will leave and eat after the flight. One simple decision replaces 500 split second decisions.

2) Commit to making a decision:

Most of our anxiety/stress is caused by indecision rather then decision. Once we decide (regret is a form of reverse indecision) we no longer “stress” out about the situation. It is how it is.

Unfortunately, what keeps people from creating systems is because of procrastination and a dislike of making decisions (Read The Now Habit, highly recommended). Ironically, these same people suffer 100x more from anxiety and stress from indecision then any possible outcome of the decision (in 99% of cases).

3) Become Aware
Seeing issues as systematic requires a certain amount of awareness. For example, I noticed that my family had a problem with stressing out about “mail, credit cards, etc.” This was a constant strain for them day in and day out (lost mail, etc.). I proposed a simple solution of setting up a mailing system + paper shredder.

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The TRUTH is that it is an investment of time to make preemptive decisions on reoccurring issues. However, once you understand how to do this and apply it routinely the personal and financial returns are significant.

David

A Great Post from one of my role models

http://realsocialdynamics.blogspot.com/2008/08/fueling-your-neurology-for-work-and.html

New Ideas are Overrated..

New Ideas are really overrated.

There, I said it and I sincerely mean it.

Every day I hear about companies investing millions of dollars in new marketing / product ideas. Of course, there is nothing wrong with investing into your business.

The problem is that it is a poor use of capital when there are other low hanging fruits that could be capitalized on. What I am talking about is sound business ideas and practices that other companies are already doing.

Let me give you an example. I am shocked at seeing how many companies automatically print receipts for every transaction. This is contrary to the opt-in receipt printing that Starbucks has adapted over the last year (offered by a customer on their innovative www.mystarbucksidea.com site). Why haven't other companies adapted this strategy. We're talking about saving trees.. and more importantly cutting costs and making more money ; )

Some will argue that you can simultaneously adopt best practices and innovate internally. I will concede that this is possible. HOWEVER, a lack of focus and the inability of companies to execute two competing strategies is one of the largest detractors of business success.

Only beginning amateurs and several thousand elite business people in the world believe they can pull this off.

As Michael Porter says: "Strategy is figuring out what NOT to do."

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At my ticket company we categorize every project based on its potential for profitability and how risky it is. When deciding which project to take on next we start with the most profitable most PREDICTABLE project. This is what we call the low hanging fruit. We never invest in any other type of project (either capital or focus) until the low hanging fruit is off the table. This is a very strict rule that I make sure everyone adheres to.

This model ensures that we are constantly growing and using our capital effectively. It also gives us the capital and stability that allows us to swing for a couple home runs that are unproven but offer high profit potential.

Rather then constantly starting brand new ideas, it would be wise to slightly innovate on the ideas of other business people. There is a reason why certain things work. It is because they are validated by the market.

Leveraging the ideas of other people and the millions of dollars they have invested in finding ideas that work is very sound business practice. You can find these ideas all over (magazines, books, your local market) if you open your eyes.

P.S. The idea for this blog entry is an iteration of the idea in "Made to Stick" that recommends finding effective P.R. and marketing ideas within your company (rather then trying to create them from scratch).