No More Unfinished Business

We'll say things like, "oh man, there's just so much going on. I'm so busy. I'm just busy, busy, busy every day." When you're saying that sort of thing, it's a strong indication that you've got a bunch of unfinished business. You've got open loops, and maybe you're not capturing it. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist and I will be discussing the topic of no more unfinished business. Welcome back, Kevin. Kevin: Good to see you, David. How you been? David: Been doing great. And you? Kevin: Good, good. So unfinished business. What do you mean when you say that? David: Well, I learned this somewhere, a number of years ago, and when I first heard, I was like, "oh man, this is me." They were talking about the fact that in business there are starters and there are finishers. And very often they're not the same person. Right? There are some people who are very good at starting projects and other people who are very good at finishing them. A lot of entrepreneurs, and some salespeople as well, are very good at starting projects. We're all excited and we're very happy to dive in, and then we tend to lose interest as we go. Kevin: Mm-hmm. David: And what that creates is a lot of unfinished things all around. And when you've got these unfinished things, they weigh on you. Right? And so when I talk about the idea of no more unfinished business, what I'm saying is that we should look at the things that are out there, that are stuck in the back of our minds. It's like, "I know I need to do that. I know I need to finish it. I haven't done it yet, but I don't feel like it," or whatever it is that's keeping us from getting it done. Kevin: Is it possible that you need to look at it and say were these things really that important in the first place? David: That's a great way to approach it. Right? Because there are things you just say, you know what? I started that, but no, that's not worthwhile. Kevin: There's a reason I didn't finish it. Yeah. David: Exactly. And it's good to eliminate that sort of thing. Whenever you're able to do that. If there's something that you're working on, you decide, look, this is not generating the results I'm looking for. Yes. Just make sure that you don't cancel it because you don't feel like doing it, right? You got to cancel it for the right reasons. If you're going to eliminate it, make sure that you evaluated it first. One of the things that I've talked about a lot in terms of just the things that we do in our projects is looking at things, I refer to it as the RADD method, RADD. It stands for Remove, Automate, Delegate, or Do. Okay, so we start with the R. Remove. And there's a reason these are actually in this order, which I'd nearly forgotten. But the reason is that if you do it in this order, you're going to end up a lot better off. If you start by removing the things that don't have to be done, then wow, that's a big relief. You're able to, essentially, Kevin: Your list just got smaller. Yeah, yeah. David: Yeah. You just eliminate it before it even becomes a problem, so that's the first step. You basically remove it. Second step is if you can automate it, right? If it's something that can be automated, then you don't have to do it. You don't have to have anyone else do it, and it will happen automatically going forward. So simple things like email autoresponders can allow you to create responses to something once and then have them happen again and again and again. So anything that can be automated, ideally should be automated. Third step is delegating. Can I delegate this to someone else? Can I delegate it to someone else in my organization? To a virtual assistant? Can somebody else do this effectively? And then the fourth one the second D is Do it. Then you actually do it. And if you go through this in that order, you remove things first. You automate them second,