Business Fundamentals: The Excuse List

The basics do not change. In business, to be successful, you must execute on your ideas and bring them to life in the real world.

Thinking about getting something done is not the answer. I have been studying the theory and practices around execution. No high and mighty ideas. Just the basics.

What I discovered was something called the excuse list. That’s right - the excuse list. We are so concerned about positive thinking and looking at problems like they are “opportunities” that we forget that we are human and we have and make excuses all the time.

What is easy to do is also easy not to do. All the great ideas, goal setting and action plans in the world can not stand up to one good excuse.

So what I do while I am planning a project is write down what I now call the excuse list. This is everything that I can think of that will get in the way of completing the task at hand.

Here’s an example that led to an whole new business model for me.

Situation: Not doing any testing.

Excuses:

• I don’t have the time
• I don’t have the tools
• I don’t have the traffic
• I might run out of time
• I have other things to do
• Another project might come up
• I don’t want to do the work
• I might mess up the pages
• The sales might go down
• I may not do the test correctly

These my friend are excuses.

Every last one of them can be solved and handled. But, you have to get them out of your head and on a piece of paper so that you can deal with them.

Introducing the excuse list. Just write out the things that you don’t want to do but should be doing and the reasons that you have for not getting it done.

Your excuses are your own. So take care of them.

 Your Excuses Are Your Own

Best Regards,

David Bullock