Getting started when it’s all too much

Waiting for the perfect time? Waiting to launch an idea, press ‘go’ on a project - there may not be a perfect time. 

When we wait for the right time, perhaps we’re just waiting until we feel right. 

But if we keep waiting until we feel ready, brave, complete, right, correct and as perfect as can be, we will be waiting a long time. 

We can burn and waste a mighty lot of time in that state of inertia, waiting ... until. 

Before a hot air balloon takes off, pilots launch small lit balloons and watch how they respond in the air. 

They can read the weather forecast or muster all the courage and bravery they have, but that’s not as good as a trial. 

A trial balloon is a smaller version of the big thing and gives them some of the most real and visible evidence of what will happen when they launch the bigger one. 

Launching a trial balloon is something we can send out early on in our endeavor to check the market’s response ... and our response too. 

What’s a trial balloon you can put out there to help you get some insight on how your ‘thing’ might go? 

Launch something. Little. 

New ways of working: what to do with those insights and ideas

New ways of working: what to do with those insights and ideas.

✅ Customer insights are on hand.

✅ Ideas have been generated. It's time to do something, to get into action with your good work.

Too often we think we need to find out more, keep working on something, finding out more more more. This is known as 'maximising', and it's not a good thing. It's linked to perfectionism, so no, not good. Rather, put those ideas out there and IMPLEMENT something; an experiment, a test, a pilot.

See if something you've thought of has value for your customers. Experiment and watch what happens. Once the experiment is done, take those insights and ITERATE; improve on your idea and go again with another experiment.

✅ There are plenty of customer needs.

✅ We have endless ideas.

New ways of working are focused on delivering value to customers, sooner. What counts is trying things out; not delaying or getting distracted.

To do this we need to:

1️⃣ Involve customers

2️⃣ Ideate possible solutions

3️⃣ Implement tests and experiments

4️⃣ Iterate and improve on the solutions.

What project you could apply this way of working to? 

Hey, didn’t you write and release that book last year, Lynne?

Hey, didn’t you write and release that book last year, Lynne? I’ve mentioned recently that my book ‘ish: The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough’ is out!

People have asked, 'But didn’t you release it last year? What’s with it being out now? Again?'

The book is about perfectionism and the increasing problem it presents in the world today. One of the ways we can tackle perfectionism I think, is to work in:

- increments (smaller packets or chunks of work, rather than trying to work on the w-h-o-l-e of a project) and,

- iterations (improving on things over time, as we release new or updated versions). This works well for reports, presentations, websites, blogs … yes, and books.

I released a couple of iterations of the book last year and got feedback and insights from people who’d read it. They let me know what they thought. Now I’m up to the 5th iteration.

Each version improving on the previous one. And it’s time to stop; it’s done. We can always, always work some more on our projects and make them better. But work in increments and iterations and you’ll get feedback to make things good enough to go 'live'.

Look again. What's good enough to go live?