The meeting was great except for one thing.

The “Little Thing Monster”.

The Little Thing Monster is the monster that loves to knock you off the track. He loves it when we focus on the little things that don’t matter as much as the big important things.

Let’s be realistic for a minute about this classic lizard brain tactic. The lizard unleashes this little devil of a monster that wants to divert our attention. The monster loves it when we get caught up in the little things.

“It’s the little things that compound and snowball into big things” he says.

Now, I’m not saying that little things don’t matter. Of course they do. What I’m saying is, when you let the monster take over and let the monster shift your focus, you’ll end up stalling out and not getting anywhere.

Believe me, I understand how important the small things are. That’s not what I’m saying. The difference is that this monster’s goal is to derail you from what’s actually going to move you forward. It keeps you from looking at the big picture.

And it’s your goal to figure out what the big picture is. Figure out what needs to happen. Look at the big picture and focus, and the little things will end up happening regardless. After all, it’s the big things that make the little things worth doing.

Source: medialunadegrasa

People will spend months reading, writing, preparing, assembling, designing, planning, tweaking, changing, editing, fixing, upgrading, testing, prototyping, meeting etc etc.

We often hear that the key to success is taking action.

They do all of this, but they never actually ship. I’m guilty of that. I’ve done that. I’ve lost the battle many times. The practice of taking action becomes a form of real and intense procrastination.

Some say the hardest part is starting; and many will argue that if we’re engaged in the steps above, we’ve already won the hardest part of the battle because we’ve started. Action has been taken.

Sometimes, I’d agree. When I procrastinate starting a Crossfit workout, it’s because of the intense pain I know I’ll experience shortly. But when I start, I know I’ll finish.

The opposite is the false start. It’s the feeling of accomplishment that we’ve actually started! We believe we’re taking strides in the right direction.

It’s a lot like signing up for a gym membership and never going.

It’s the endless pursuit of perfection without actually ever shipping your product out the door.

It’s like saying you want to start a blog, and you move forward by spending months researching how to actually do it. If you just start, it can be done in seconds and you can learn as you go.

The false start is a lot like the hamster in a cage. The wheel is spinning, but the hamster isn’t going anywhere.

What YOU need to figure out is, have you’ve actually started, or are you just spinning your wheels?

P.S. June 14th is Linchpin Day worldwide! On June 14th, in hundreds (maybe thousands) of cities Worldwide, Linchpins will unite.

What is Linchpin Day? Read this..

Are you a Linchpin?

I’ll be organizing a local linchpin meetup in Windsor/Essex County. You can find details here.

If you’re interested in attending and meeting up, please mark a spot on the list. I’ll be blogging more about this over the next couple of weeks.

Maybe they looked at you like you were nuts. Maybe they thought you were a little bit of a weirdo. Maybe they told you to stop daydreaming and get back to work.

Jack Dorsey, the creator and co-founder of Twitter, had the idea for Twitter brewing in his head since he was 15-years old. When he first used the service, at a preliminary stage with his friends as test subjects, they were annoyed.

“That’s great Jack, keep playing, but I’ve got work to do.”

You can watch Jack talk about the idea and creation of Twitter below. One of the key points is that very early-on, he was able to move a very rough drawing of his idea out of his head and onto a piece of paper.

One of the very first blog posts I ever wrote was called “Why you shouldn’t start your own business!” Looking back, my writing and blog quality has come along way, but the idea is the same. There will always be an ample number of people telling you how stupid your ideas are.

Most people will disagree and tell you to get back to work. They’ll tell you it’s too risky or it’s the wrong time to start a business.

Is it ever the right time?

There have been so many other stupid ideas before yours. For example:

Apple will never be successful with the iPod.

Lots of people said, and still say, “Twitter is dumb. I don’t get it.”

Your friends that once said, “I’ll never carry a cell phone,” are probably texting you right now.

Your friends that once said, “I’ll never join Facebook” are probably posting their fifth album of vacation photos this week.

The point is this:

• It will never be the right time.
• Your ideas will always be stupid to some people.
• Those same people will probably talk about you and your wacky ideas behind your back.

I say – “proceed.”

I dumped a ton of sweat, tears, and money into this business.

I spent days working on the code and modifying things until they were perfect. Everyday, I’d pay a coder to work with me and make all the desired little tweaks and changes that were required.

Every month I paid expensive hosting bills to keep the pending service a float.

I had business cards designed and printed.

I created window stickers and had them printed at the local print shop. When I arrived, weeks later to pick them up, the colors were all messed up and they looked like crap. So, I called a bigger and much more expensive company in Toronto and had them done right.

I worked with some very talented and pricey copywriters who helped me tweak the copy and helped me with sales information to promote the service.

I worked endlessly on developing a targeted list of potential contacts and businesses that could use the service.

I paid a boat load of money to print and prepare all the  letters and sales information I would mail to the businesses.

I hand delivered the letters to the post office and paid the postal fees.

I had dreams of grandeur that my phone would ring off the hook for the next two weeks.

I Shipped.

The phone never rang. Actually, it rang a couple of times, but people either didn’t get what I was offering or they simply weren’t interested.

I followed up with many and explained that I didn’t want their money. They could use the service for FREE. They still didn’t get it. Many claimed that their customers didn’t use the Internet…

None of the businesses knew how hard I had worked or how much money I’d spent preparing this service.

None of them knew how many late nights were spent slaving over this idea.

Nobody cared.

I was in a state of denial for a few months afterward.
I kept pushing the service and trying new things. I believed my idea would work and could help businesses grow.

Maybe my offer was no good. Maybe I used the wrong type of font in my sales letters. Maybe I needed an army of sales gurus.

But then one day, something clicked.

I realized that I had shipped.

It was a total flop. The letters were mailed. The site was finished. The work was done.

My next move was easy.

I went to my closet and tossed out 1000 business cards.

I threw away 5000 expensive double sided stickers.

I emptied over 500 glossy brochures into our recycling bin.

I allowed the website hosting bill to come and go without being paid.

I buried that sucker alive while it was still gasping for air. After that I went for a long walk outside and enjoyed the fresh air.

As Stephen Pressfield says in The War of Art, Rest in peace, mother&#^er.

The book is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. That’s right – it’s not the art of war, but the war of art.

Steven suggests that there is a force inside us all, which he calls the resistance, that causes us to avoid getting things done that truly matter.

It’s the force of procrastination – it’s the force of taking less or no risk – it’s the force behind writers’ block – it’s the force behind creative paralysis. It’s similar to what Seth Godin calls the lizard brain.

So here’s the question I’m asking myself now.

Pressfield says that every time we do (or don’t do) something that’s mildly or remotely scary, we’re being confronted by the resistance.

Over the past four months, I’ve confronted the resistance on a daily basis by writing this blog. As I’ve mentioned before, I used to say I didn’t have the time or motivation necessary to blog on a daily basis. Now, however, each morning I arrive at my desk with my coffee in hand, and I challenge the resistance.

Some days it’s gotten easier and the resistance relents. Somedays the lizard is quiet and allows me to easily finish my blog post without any pain.

On other days – I’d rather be fishing.

But now I’m starting to ask myself a bigger question about the resistance.

Have I begun blogging on a daily basis as a way to cope with the resistance in an act to avoid doing things that really matter?

And if so, is the resistance relenting?

That is scary.

I couldn’t take it. I hopped in the car, drove 40 minutes to the closest book store and purchased a copy of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD). Can you guess what happened next? Being a diligent procrastinator, I gave the  book a quick glance and then it hit my bookshelf only to gather a smooth layer of dust for the next 4 or so years!

Here we are in 2010 and I’m reading 100 of the best business books of all time. The other day I finally got “Getting Things Done” done. 95 Books to go!

Getting Things Done rightfully deserves its spot on the list of 100 best business books of all time. David Allen delivers a solid, concrete, fool-proof system that would allow anyone to make major changes to the way they organize and handle incoming and stress-inducing information.

This is a solid system. David lays it out, step-by-step, while appropriately pointing out the times you may need to make changes in your own system to make it work for you.

This isn’t so much a review because I highly recommend you read the book. There are thousands of summaries to be found online. I’m about eight years late getting on the GTD bandwagon.

Reading this book now makes me think about how beneficial implementing this system could be to children in our education system.

Imagine during the final year of High School that, instead of looking at who said this and who said that back in the 16th century, we taught our students the GTD system. The system is so easy to  understand that we’d be sending our kids into the world as little bad-ass productivity gurus.

Life skills.

The GTD Workflow

If I could implement even  half of what David is saying, it would totally change my life. And I will.

It could change your life as well. Here’s what I realized as the big takeaway from GTD. Sure it would help me clean my office, feel less stress looking at my task list, and keep my inbox tidy, but it would force me to do something far more important.

David explains the amazing relief you’ll experience when you’ve got a system in place that clears your mind of ALL  “to-do related stress.” It can be remarkable. It can be life changing.

Near the end of the book, David really pushes the question, “What’s the next action?” He explains how even just implementing this single question can have a remarkable effect on your life. I remember attending meetings at my 9-5 job in Windsor, Ontario, where we sat for two hours and left without a single defined action step. I’ve talked to others who attend meetings on a daily basis, never to define a “next action step.”

Defining a next action step is a critical component to your success.

Of course, with such a great system, there’s always a catch-22.

The catch  of stress-free productivity is that once you implement the GTD system and you’ve got nothing left on your plate, you’re going to have to ask the question (What’s the next action?) to the hardest person of all…

Yourself.

And if you don’t ask the question, guess where you are? You’re in The Waiting Place.