Decision Trees and Dead Ends
History is written by the winners. But history is always written as if the initial decision was what the final result was. The dead ends and bad decisions are always written out. And rarely do we recall that things could have been different if…
In business you will make a lot of decisions. Some will lead to positive results and more decision opportunities. Some will lead to dead ends and you will need to go back to a point where you can make a different decision. Some decisions will also lead off in new directions.
Human nature is funny. We forget the dead ends and when we document the experiences, we only record the decisions that moved us toward our goal.
That is why in business, as in life, it is important to have your purpose for the project clearly in front of you and to write down you goals. That way you can check off your progress on the journey.
And keep in mind that you may decide to alter your goals but only with careful consideration alter your purpose. Goals can change with new information, ideas and circumstances.
You need the goals as markers in your decision tree though as each is a point where you need to decide how to move to the next decision. Your met goal is also the point you can return to if you go down a dead end.
A word of caution – perfect decisions are impossible. Good business owners make decisions as early as practical. If you delay to get all the information, that is a decision and sometimes that decision will cost you in lost opportunity. Procrastination can be good but also bad.
How do you know?
If your head says wait then find out if you are waiting out of fear or something else. If you are afraid of losing face or making a wrong decisions, feel the fear and decide to take action.
Being serious about doing business means making decisions and moving forward.
Roberta
Simplifier, Presenter, Mentor
#13 Mind Map Your Ideas
Image via Wikipedia
If you have never done a mind map, today is a good day to learn. It will simplify your life, allow more colour and help you plan more effectively.
I use this FREE software - FreeMind http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
But my favourite tools for mind mapping are coloured pencils and a BIG sheet of paper.
One advantage of a mind map is to help you think. Most people do not think linearly. We seldom think of one sentence then another sentence and then another sentence. We think in words and pictures and one thought often gives rise to several other thoughts.
Mind mapping allows you to capture all those different thoughts. A mind map allows you to add more information later or easily update information when you learn more information.
Over the last 12 days, you have looked at a lot of information. This time is critical to your business future so before you start another week, let the mind map show you what you have discovered and thought.
Take each section and write the key points as a separate string. That means you will have at least 12 events coming off the central bubble called “My Business“. The number of strings that come off each node will vary with your thought processes. Feel free to add more thoughts too. Put down words or concepts, grammar is unimportant in a mind map.
Once you have created your mind map you will start to see relationships between the different areas. Now you can start to look at your next action steps.
Highlight or underline your key words, words that matter to you.
Tomorrow you will be using all the words you highlighted so be colourful.
Have fun.
Roberta
Simplifier, Presenter, Mentor
This blog is part of the 30 minutes 4 30 days successful business start-up
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