It’s pretty easy to feel overwhelmed these days as a business owner. Ownership carries a lot of responsibilities and we are now under a lot of new pressures because of the rapidly changing world in which we operate.
Advertising is becoming ubiquitous with the internet and social media and technology is bringing a basic shift of moving work and the cost of the work from the corporations to us individually. Under the guise of giving us flexibility, customization and choice, many actions that used to be done for us are now being done by us. There are many more tools available to us that owners even 20 years – I know, because 20 years ago a PC was an investment of a thousand + dollars and typing a document was about all you could readily do with it.
We have to make a lot more choices so we have to make more decisions. Making decisions, especially a lot of decisions can become tiring. I know. It’s why I don’t work more than 6 hours, usually only 3 with a new client. Organizing is a decision making process because, according to industry founder Barbara Hemphill – clutter is a postponed or incomplete decision.
New technologies have to be assessed and worked into you basic business strategy. Should you switch to on line storage and software subsriptions and technology needs. What if any social media options should be added to your marketing strategy? And, oh yeah, you need to actually work with clients and generate revenue and you can’t do that until you develop a product or service package then network and market it using the right combination of marketing and advertising options.
When it all gets to be too much, we stop – faced with so many options it becomes impossible to decide what we should do and so we just grind to a halt, unable to decide.
When I hit that moment – and I do – we all do – the best thing you can do it just pick any one action – without thought to value, rightness or priority and, borrowing a line from the Nike ad, just do it. Get moving with an action of any kind and you will begin to compare it and start to make the judgements of this is better than that. The sense of accomplishment of even a small task will help propel you through the roadblock of overwhelm.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed?