Are You the Bottleneck to Your Success?

Is anyone out there experiencing a roadblock to your progress because the “easy” part has proven to be complicated? Let’s commiserate.

I’ve been juggling several projects lately, and earlier this week work came to a screeching halt. A straightforward project that has a tenacious deadline (self-inflicted) revealed that it wasn’t so straightforward. 

I won’t delve too far into the weeds to spare you the boring life of a writer—it has to do with templates and document conversion for AI friendliness (i.e., ensuring AI can read what’s written). Something that should be crazy simple has body checked me into a wall.

Everything else on schedule has been pushed out. Frustrating. My predicament somehow connected my mental wires to a flashback of me playing video games as a kid. It’s connected, I promise.

Everyone else had Atari, but we could only afford a Sears console that came with a turn dial, in lieu of a joystick. Most of the games included were not age appropriate. What nine-year-old wants to play solitaire or golf? However, I did have access to Dungeons & Dragons. 

As a fledgling gamer, I struggled to navigate rough terrain. I lacked the skill needed to help my character seamlessly jump levels: turn the paddle while hitting a button. Simple, right? My pixelated person invariably got stuck at a wall, walking but going nowhere. The  only thing standing between me and my trophy. 

Have you ever felt that way—trying to move but walking in place, blocked by a challenge? 

This is me and my project. I’m the character walking in place against the wall without making progress. I created my own bottleneck by getting stuck on this thought: Why aren’t things working? This should be straightforward? Why isn’t it? I want to scream!

Yeah, totally unhelpful.

Systems and Processes are Great! (when they work)

I have a goal-setting process. I know what I want to accomplish, and how to make it happen. When something unexpected happens, though, that process is thrown out of whack. 

“Unexpected” is a major derailment that creates instant confusion in your mind. You were prepared to do the task, finish the project, tackle the beast. You weren’t prepared for a curveball. Now you, like me, are walking in place.

How can you absorb these unexpected blows and return to making progress?

Let’s dive into a few examples from the perspective of the career professional and a solopreneur.

Our simple 4-step approach is:

Identify the bottleneck.

Write out what’s causing the bottleneck.

Take action to close the gaps creating the bottleneck.

Reflect on your responsibility.

Career Professional Perspective

Example 1: Daily to-do lists are overwhelming. You may find yourself in the nonstop game of “Bump It One Day” as you fall behind and play catch up (except you never do). Looming deadlines add to your stress. 

Is it your entire to-do list creating the bottleneck (unlikely), or is there one to two of your tasks derailing your day? Let’s say reviewing and responding to email takes an inordinate amount of time. 

Identify: Reviewing and responding to email takes two hours a day.

[Now, write down (yes, write) your specific email issues.]

Write: My inbox is packed with emails. Junk and spam emails are interspersed with pressing emails. I’m afraid to delete emails. What if I delete something important? Plus, I need to stay on top of emails to complete client requests, so I check my inbox every few minutes.

[You’re probably spending more than two hours on your email. What you don’t realize is that your inbox is controlling your day. You tell yourself that you’re being efficient as you’re falling further behind. You have tools available to you to structure an efficient process. Ask IT, a tech savvy colleague, or do your own research to take control, instead of being controlled.]

Take Action: I’ll create folders (no more than 5) to direct emails to categories that clearly identify them. I’ll create protocols to send spam and junk emails directly to trash. And, I’ll schedule my inbox time, instead of being at its beck and call.

Reflect: My responsibility is to efficiently act on client and in-office emails as they arrive (not managing spam and junk emails).

Note: Close out each day by noting your bottlenecks. As you introduce changes things will need to be tweaked. Observe what works and what needs refinement. 

Solopreneur Perspective

You set your deadlines, even when you’re working with clients. You’re the one who decides how long it will take you to complete projects. I suspect that 9 times out of 10 you get into a flow and everything runs as expected. However, there is that 10% of the time when something clogs the pipes of your efficiency. 

My project ballooned when I realized I was relying on old skills and using new technology. I was a project manager working with software development “back in the day,” so I’m not surprised when one system refuses to speak to another. Frustrated? Certainly. Surprised? Never.

Example 2: Solopreneurs are susceptible to “scope creep.” Scope creep is a project that grows beyond its original range, or scope. Your creative mind starts adding on bells and whistles that are nice-to-haves, not necessities. This snowballs into never completing your project, growing bored or overwhelmed with it, and abandoning it altogether as you develop another project to replace it. You never complete a project, which leads to feelings of listlessness and inadequacy.

Identify: I have a great idea for a project and flesh it all out. However, as I work on it I have incredible ideas that I want to fold into the current project. As the project expands, I lose the original intention and vision. I just can’t follow through on all my ideas.

Write: I’ll separate my original idea from my new ideas. Unless the new idea is an efficient improvement on an idea from the original idea, I won’t include it in the current iteration. 

Take Action: I’ll store all my new ideas in a separate area, so (1) I don’t forget them and (2) they don’t distract me from my original idea. I won’t dedicate time to expanding new ideas until I complete my current project.

Reflection: My responsibility is to commit to my vision and complete the current project. When I constantly add-on and abandon projects it’s like a poorly designed science project or study—I’m introducing too many variables that can affect the outcome (and I’ll never know what works and what doesn’t).

Close out your day by observing what worked and what needs slight alterations.

Don’t allow bottlenecks to sideline your progress. Taking ownership for all aspects of your work, including the bottlenecks, puts you in control of the outcomes. Until next time, friends, may we all take huge leaps forward.

Sending you all Peace, Love, & Harmony.

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