Just because something does not cause you problems right now, does not mean you can ignore it. I learnt this the hard way yesterday. For some time I knew there was something funny going on with one of my back teeth – but it really did not cause me any trouble or discomfort. So i ignored it. Then all of a sudden it started to cause a bunch of issues – and yesterday as I stared up the hairy nose of my dentist – a whole world of pain came crashing down on me. The craziest part is that it was self entirely self-inflicted and had I done something earlier there would have been some much more pleasant options available.
So if there is something that you know you should have done recently and have put off – go and do it. This might be personal, health or work related.
Another example I shared at convergence related to my internal reporting. For 4 years I have taken a SmartList once a month, exported it to excel, cut and paste it onto a master worksheet, done a find and replace to take out currency symbols. Then I viewed this report in a really nice pivot table.
There was nothing broken with this process at all. Nothing caused me pain or issues except that it took me roughly 30 minutes each month. (4 years * 12 months * 1/2 and hour). But what if I discovered that back in March 20010 that I had accidentally deleted some rows from the spread sheet? What if I realised that our new order clerk had been voiding documents for 12 months that were now part of my report?
I then took an extra 1/2 hour to a few months back to turn this report into an Excel Report Builder report. Literally 30 minutes. Not my report is always live and always up to date. I can review it at any point in a month and not wait until month end. I can share it with the sales team all month to review progress. I have eliminated my half hour each month on this report and now spend it taking a longer lunch (I know I could be more productive – but sometimes you have to treat yourself).
In this case nothing was broken – but making a change has made a major improvement. The benefit is not just in time saving but in how we can manage our business.
So if you have something that is not broken – go and fix it anyway.
