Tuesday, February 28, 2006

The Power of Incrementalism

If you ever tried to tackle a really big job? One of those jobs where the goal looks overwhelming like losing 100 pounds or writing a Book? How about making 1000 cold calls! Surely that would be a great goal to set. There is a big secret to getting these kinds of things done, and with low anxiety.

You have to do it a piece-at-a-time over time. You need to agree in advance how long you will take, and how much you will do each day, week, or month. When I write a book, I estimate the number of pages, lets say 250. I can write 2 pages an hour, so that is 125 hours. I can set aside an hour a day Monday-Thursday and two hours on Saturday. So I have 6 hours per week. So, 22 weeks to write the first draft. It is no longer an elephant in my plate. Just today's quarter pounder.

Want to make a 1000 cold calls. Do it in 250 days (50 weeks X 5 days) at 4 calls per day. Couldn't possibly take more than 1 hour per day to make those 4 calls. If anyone reading this has the slightest doubt that your business would increase substantially as a result of making 1000 cold calls next year, please leave your comments.

Sales success
Small Business
Management
Personal Motivation

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