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<\/div>2. You neglect the present.<\/h2>\n
While the future may seem unnerving, the present is even scarier.<\/p>\n
“Tomorrow” is a fantastic excuse for many entrepreneurs because it’s a way to ignore the present. Since entrepreneurs are constantly taking risks, the present is another chance for disappointment.<\/p>\n
If we ignore the present, we never confront the problem – we push it away.<\/p>\n
When we don’t have to confront the issue, we don’t do anything, so we compensate by “planning” for tomorrow.<\/p>\n
For example, many business owners delay taking action and make critical branding mistakes<\/a> that can put them out of business (or prevent them from starting a business). Such mistakes include failing to\u00a0name their new business<\/a>\u00a0and constantly delaying getting started, failing to invest in a professional logo design<\/a>, or other branding mistakes that hold them and their businesses back, as we wrote in Five Branding Mistakes That Could Put Your Small Business Out Of Business<\/a>.<\/p>\n Start by setting clear business goals<\/a> and proceed to execute against those goals today<\/span>.<\/p>\n Our most impressive goals are not accomplished in one day.<\/p>\n Productivity experts remind us that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but few of us internalize this popular story.<\/p>\n Entrepreneurs, especially first-time entrepreneurs, want quick success, large amounts of cash flow, and extreme growth.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, very few companies boomed overnight. Many of those that did have since folded.<\/p>\n Research on entrepreneurs and their startups backs this up: only 1\/10,000 companies started will be valued at $1 billion or more<\/a>.<\/p>\n The odds of an overnight success are even lower. So we don’t just need “tomorrow” to make our goals happen, we need today too. For more on this, read 7 Habits of Highly Effective and Successful Entrepreneurs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nobody likes the “too busy” person. The one who never has time for anything, always saying they’ll do it tomorrow only to never actually do what they promised.<\/p>\n This excuse is just another way to word the “tomorrow” excuse because it assumes that you’ll be less busy to do the task in the future.<\/p>\n It’s also a humble-brag<\/a>, a sneaky way that people brag about their success to others while simultaneously complaining about it.<\/p>\n Once entrepreneurs start using this excuse, they very seldom stop. Successful entrepreneurs don’t spend many hours creating to-do lists – they jump on the immediate tasks.<\/p>\n Successful entrepreneurs also minimize non-important tasks. Mark Zuckerberg, for example<\/a>, avoids making unnecessary decisions:<\/p>\n I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community \u2026 I\u2019m in this really lucky position, where I get to wake up every day and help serve more than a billion people. And I feel like I\u2019m not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In fact, creating an atmosphere where you’re “busy” but not very productive is dangerous because it will lead you to make bad decisions, as we discussed on our article The Science of Bad Decisions and How You Can Avoid Making Them<\/a>.<\/p>\n Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, argues that procrastination is unavoidable.\u00a0<\/a>He says it’s the type of procrastination that sets successful people apart. According to Graham, the excuse of “tomorrow” is bad procrastination because it deflects and allows errands to interrupt our lives.<\/p>\n Instead, Graham says that successful entrepreneurs practice good procrastination by ignoring interruptions and making sure that tasks are ordered by importance.<\/p>\n For example, important tasks get done today and the small ones, like doing laundry, get pushed to tomorrow. Since tasks like laundry must happen at some point, there’s a smaller risk of failing to meet goals.<\/p>\n We wrote about this<\/a> in an earlier article about the science of bad decisions:<\/p>\n Properly ordering important decisions first also helps because important decisions tend to be more emotional. Dr. Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist and professor at USC and the Salk Institute, in his book,\u00a0Descarte\u2019s Error<\/a>, suggests that we make decisions not only based on fact and logic, but on stored emotional memories that remain covert. We can tolerate a certain level of emotion throughout the day, but when our emotional response is amplified, this has a negative impact on our decision-making.<\/p>\n Be careful, however, if you take too long to make decisions, especially early in the day, this may impact your confidence. Dr. Roozbeh Kiani, an assistant professor in NYU\u2019s Center for Neural Science\u00a0found that<\/a>\u00a0\u201cadditional time is useful only if it adds to the overall evidence that is used for the decision.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Richard Hamming, the author of\u00a0 You and Your Research<\/em><\/a>, offers 3 questions to ask before prioritizing tasks.<\/p>\n 1. What are the most important problems in your field?<\/p>\n 2. Are you working on one of them?<\/p>\n 3. Why not?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Entrepreneurs by definition are risk-takers.<\/p>\n Entrepreneurs prone to procrastination believe that anything can lead to failure. This paralyzes vital skills like decision making and critical thinking.<\/p>\n3. You assume that accomplishments are instantaneous.<\/h2>\n
4. You become the \u201cI\u2019m very busy\u201d person.<\/h2>\n
5. You prioritize the wrong tasks.<\/h2>\n
6. You fear failure.<\/h2>\n
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