I am an expert at creating To Do lists. It makes me feel in control and also helps keep me moving. At the end of the day, if I accomplished all I set out to do, I feel like it’s a day well lived.
I’ve also found, though, that it’s just as important to be very disciplined and create a “Stop Doing” list. It can become a very powerful tool to grow your business. As soon as I started putting this practice in place my business automatically started expanding. (However, being a creature of habit, it did not come easy to me at first.)
Here are a few examples of what you can find on my Stop Doing list:
- Stop charging the same amount for your services every year. Like a good wine, your services should increase in value every year.
- Stop using the same designs more than you have to. If you are in the design business, the only way to grow and keep it fresh is by changing your designs as often as possible.
- If you have a design or product that you are not making a profit with, YOU NEED TO STOP IT, and re-think the concept.
- If you do any job that you hate STOP IT. Do not get me wrong, every job has its difficult and boring parts, but at the end of the day it needs to make you happy.
- Stop being late. Not only with your time, but with your deadlines. (This one is difficult for me. I tend to over promise at times, then be in a mad rush to get it done.)
- Stop indulging bad behavior with your assistants or employees. We often feel that we cannot do without one or two folks who are working for us and we’ll put up with a lot of junk. In my many years of experience, I always find that as soon as I let them go, I get another person 10 times more dedicated and better.
My suggestion is that anytime you are in the process of doing a To Do list, make sure you also make a “Stop Doing” list. This will become a remarkable way to unplug all kinds of junk from your head and business. What is one important thing you would add to your “Stop Doing” list?
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George Bernard Shaw once said: “You see things and say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’” That quote embodies how Preston Bailey approaches every event.
Alan Smithson
May 6, 2010
Hello Preston,
Great advice! I live by the STOP doing what you hate rule and I am much happier for it. The other parts are helpful. thank you.
We met once at BizBash in Toronto. If you ever need Canada’s top Corporate & Special Event DJ, you know where to find me!
http://www.StarProductions.com
Have a super-fantastic day!
Alan Smithson
Amsterdam
May 6, 2010
Stop being late with deadlines and stop doing job’s I hate. I have two things and one I love and the one other I deteste. I need to pull all of my love in making the one I love a fulltime thing, I think. Good advice.
Saufen
May 6, 2010
Thanks for these precious insights, Preston. They keep us sane. Something on my Stop Doing List would be simply, “Stop doing… too much”. Seriously, we need to know when to stop. In our quest to do better and do more, to give our client the best possible work, we can go overboard. I had a subtle but pointed reminded of this when I was doing our latest event where the pre-dinner cocktail was held in the outdoor courtyard. It was a Spanish themed event and I was fussing around adding more and more roses and rose petals everywhere until the client, standing beside the bags of tools, props and more roses, asked me (not in a rude way though) when would we be done as she was afraid come guests might turn up early, peering at the mess of bags as she said that. Oops. I realised I had gone overboard a little. Immediately, I said “We’re already done!” and we all gathered up our bags and things and disappeared behind the scenes in a flash! The same principle applies in doing design. I’m a perfectionist and would work and work and work a concept to death and then fret about working on having a few alternative concepts on hand too. Studying your work and Daniel Ost’s work, I find design is about simplifying more than making things more complicated. I used to work for a Buddhist Temple doing exhibitions and I recalled having to learn how to let go. This is a tough thing to do but we all must strike a balance between doing/striving and non-doing/letting go to be happy in our work.
{Ms. P}
May 7, 2010
Good ideas.
Brenda
May 8, 2010
Preston, I have so appreciated the insight and wisdom you bring to this blog. I look forward to it everyday. I am inspired to implement so much of what you mention as I start a new career. Great ideas!…Thank you again!