AnywhereMan

I watched three episodes of Whale Wars last night. I’ve already seen season one and am almost through season two (Netflix rocks, BTW).

Whale Wars is a show that follows around the adventures of the Sea Shepherds, a team of folks dedicated to ending whaling near Antartica. They essentially drive around, find Japanese whaling ships, and throw stink bombs at them. Their leader was kicked out of Greenpeace for being too extreme. And I think he was one of the founders! It’s highly entertaining.

But here’s the thing: One of the reasons I find the show entertaining is that the Sea Shepherds absolutely suck at execution. Every time they find a Japanese ship to harass, something goes wrong.

Oops…one guy just threw a grappling hook and chipped the tail of the helicopter.

Oops…the team in one of the small boats doesn’t have their radio on and the main ship has no idea where they are. And their satellite phone battery is dead. And the GPS isn’t working.

Oops…they’re about to engage and launch some stink bombs…and have to turn around because they’re running low on gas.

Oops…they’re launching one of the small boats and it flips over…four people stranded in freezing cold water.

You get the idea.

It seems like there is a general “plan of attack” when they encounter a whaling ship, but it always seems like important pieces of that plan are missing. I’ve never seen a single episode where they initiate a practice “attack.”

My point is this: plan ahead. Plan for business and “busyness.” Have systems in place to keep things running smooth when things start to get intense. Having a general, scattered plan for dealing with new clients, new projects, etc is bound to have some holes. Pinpoint those holes and patch them up.

My wife told me she read that the actual number of whales killed is way down thanks to efforts by groups like the Sea Shepherds. That’s great, but imagine how low they could be if things actually went according to plan.

What are you going to do today?

This is the question you should be answering each and every morning whether it’s a work day or a personal day. In the last post I challenged to you to list something you wanted to get better at in 2010. Well how do you do that? It needs to be part of your daily routine if it’s going to be an area of improvement. Today I talk about that concept.

Apologies for the bit of out-of-focus look to this video. I didn’t have my camera on the close-up setting…great feature to have unless you forget to use it!

Be safe tonight, everyone, and tomorrow start your day by completing the sentence, “Today I’m going to _______.”

If you are operating a one-person business like I do, who keeps you motivated? Who makes sure you are completing things on time and not slacking off?

It’s all you.

Sometimes I feel like the absolute King of Slacking Off but I’ve come to the realization that if I keep enough “fun” things spread out through my projects (especially big projects), the excitement will linger throughout the parts of the project that I might not normally enjoy that much. This helps me stay motivated, focused, and on-task.

What keeps you fresh and excited during various phases of a big project or the day-to-day routine?