In business, we’re constantly bombarded with issues: company issues, department issues, and people issues. When you think about it, on average, we’re probably dealing with 136 issues every single day. In order to handle them quickly, most leaders and managers pick the easiest ones to do first, while ignoring the more complex or tougher ones.
These leaders end up spending twice the amount of time on what they thought were going to be easy and fast issues, while pushing the more important issues to the corner of their desk, left ignored. The problem is, the important issues could actually sink your company if avoided for too long.
If this sounds familiar, don’t despair, I have the solution.
It’s called compartmentalization, and you can sort and prioritize your issues into four buckets:
- One Year
- 90 Days
- Seven Days
- Parking Lot (long-term issues)
Here’s how it works:
In the one-year bucket, place the issues that have to be addressed this year, but not now. In the 90-day bucket, place the issues that have to be resolved this quarter. In the seven-day bucket, place the issues that have to be addressed this week. And finally, in the parking lot bucket, place the issues that are on hold until next quarter.
You’ll find compartmentalizing a simple but powerful tool to help you take control and stop ignoring the important issues.
Chris is a successful entrepreneur, author and head coach at Traction in Florida. He’s passionate about helping entrepreneurs get what they want from their business. Learn more at www.tractioninflorida.com.
