Change of Pace and A Little Pressure ... - Small Business Trends

How many times has pressure worked in your favor? Or is it the calmer moments that serve you better? Creativity tends to show up when you make room for it.

A Little Pressure For Your Plans

It?s funny how deadlines tend to heat things up and you create and finish what you?ve been putting off for days or months.

Let me put it this way: if you have forever to complete a task, it will probably take you forever to get it done. But add a deadline that you respect to that and things will start moving. You could finish that book in a year or six months if you had to. If it?s the right kind of pressure, chances are you will rise to the occasion, and create all kinds of unique solutions along the way.

So let?s set that deadline ? in fact, every project needs one. Since you?re the boss and can change your mind, then you need a little accountability and reward to make it stick.

Accountability

You can make the deadline concrete by bringing your team in as well as sharing it with your trusted and respected mentor. When you add others to the mix, it tends to make an idea more real. But you can do one more thing.

Two days after the deadline, schedule a trip. Pay for that airline ticket, book the hotel room and the rental car. It can be business or pleasure ? the point is you have to leave town. That adds to the pressure. The right kind of pressure is good for planning and execution.

Quick Tip: To be effective the deadline has to be doable, so make it realistic and have a little fun with that trip.

A Pace Change for Your Ideas?

For the always mobile, traditionally type A personality, it may be time for a change of pace. In Use This Summer To Boost Creativity, Anita Campbell, Founder of Small Business Trends, suggests that you take advantage of the season by getting into the summer flow. She says in the summer ?things slow down? and ?we take vacations.?

So back to our trip ? it can pay for it self in terms of this:

1. you have some fun
2. you get some rest
3. you let your ideas marinate

When you get back to it, you just may solve some of the problems that have had you stuck. ?We can stress and overwhelm ourselves until the best ideas die. Or we can switch it up, and give creativity a little room to breathe.

Deadline Photo via Shutterstock

Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/change-of-pace-and-a-little-pressure-innovation-and-execution.html

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