Just Do It

This post is going to be short today; this week exploded into being extremely busy with quite a few folks contacting me to do some stuff.

Now I’m very tired but wanted to get this post in.

Twice this week, I had some conversations with two different folks who complained about how some people don’t complete or execute what they are supposed to do, until too late, if ever. From what I gather, there are a lot of folks who wait to be told what to do rather than just doing what needs to be done.

I have also have heard from folks complaining about how they don’t get to do fun stuff to which I say, sometimes you just have to go out and grab it (or do it).

So next time, if you see something that is not being done, maybe because everyone else is too tired or waiting to be told what to do, just go and do it. When you go ahead and do it, maybe you will have an opportunity to turn it into something really fun.

As an example, I used to work for someone who needed to get messaging out to his customers and supposedly a young girl was going to do these messaging (emails, Facebook, website). After about two months with nothing done and my other colleague pushing the owner to get something done, I finally decided I would do the emails. At that time, I had finally finished setting up some automated activities so I  had some time to work on emails. With the emails, that activity grew into generating pictures (or “posters”) to make the emails more interesting, developing topics that I thought our customers would want to know, and setting up a messaging schedule so our customers would know when to expect the messages. Emails segued into Facebook postings with the pictures/posters and then finally, I ended up doing website updates.

From there, some folks probably decided I should learn Photoshop so they gave me an Apple laptop loaded with Photoshop. Starting from email alone, I turned it into something really creative and interesting, only because no one else was executing the messaging task.

A couple of tips when taking charge like this:

1. Don’t pick something someone else is already doing. You want to pick an activity that is failing but no one has the time to deal with it.
2. Make sure that the first step you take is something that won’t get your boss or owner into BIG trouble, if what you do fails. You want to start small as a trial.
3. Then once the small trial works, you can gradually build up to bigger chances, possibly leading to creating work that you like to do and is unique to you.

So next time somebody complains about something that is not being done, just do it.