In their book ‘Rework’, Basecamp founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson advocate we run our business with the same ruthless selectivity as a museum curator.
Only the best pieces should stay to create a cohesive, impressive collection. For that to happen we have to learn to say ‘no’ and leave stuff out.
This is a really powerful tool you can start applying today to your self – which regular behaviours should stay or go in order to boost your own performance?
Are you unwittingly hoarding bad habits?
For years, I worked as a marketing manager for a coffee shop chain in the UK. The pace was fast and pressure to meet sales targets high. I compensated for the long hours at work with decreased sleep, increased coffee (hey we had the good stuff on tap!) and irregular meal times.
Over time, my focus at work started to decrease so I’d have to work longer hours to achieve the same results.
I became snappy and my resilience bottomed out. Yet at the time, I had no awareness of the damage I was doing to myself due to the bad behaviours I was carelessly accumulating.
Get your editing pen out
Every week you will no doubt make many ‘editing’ decisions to progress your business, your team or even your family.
But are you investing the same time, thought and energy into the curation of you? Or are you slowly and steadily cluttering your mind and body with habits that are not serving you and are in fact affecting your productivity and performance?
What are you going to say ‘no’ to this week?