WHAT YOU FEEL: there are 100 things to do and when I think about all that needs to be done, I get overwhelmed and stuck
PERSPECTIVE: Every entrepreneur has a hundred things to accomplish. Some are big picture, some are tactical and some take long periods of time. At my company, when we started we were at least a year from revenue. For many, this can be multiple years. Despite this, there are things that need to get done every day.

It is common for entrepreneurs to come to work and instead of focusing on the tasks of the day, to worry about what is not getting done. This is counterproductive. Focus on the items you have decided to do that day. Focusing on the ninety things that you are not going to do, the things that must go right or what needs to be done over the next few months, is wasted time and effort. Once you have decided your tasks for the day, get them done.

In the movie Apollo 13, the spacecraft has suffered damage and the astronauts are moving through a series of procedures to prepare the spacecraft for reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Given the damage, success is hardly assured. While they are working, Bill Paxon (who plays astronaut Fred Haise, Sr. ) questions whether Mission Control in Houston is giving the astronauts accurate information. Tom Hanks (who plays captain Jim Lovell) says:

“All right, there’s a thousand things that have to happen in order. We are on number eight. You’re talking about number six hundred and ninety-two…. We’re not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes, because we’re just going to end up back here with the same problems!”

Work the problem. Focus on the items you have determined require your attention that day. What gives the entrepreneur the path toward success is progress. When you come to work with ten things to get done, and you keep thinking about the ninety you are not getting done, you end up with two results. First, you are still not getting the ninety done. Second, you probably are doing a bad job with the ten you needed to get done.

When I was studying for the bar exam, there were hundreds of hours of material to cover. It’s probably the only time in my life when I felt if the testers wanted me to fail, I would fail. Think of it as a test on any class you had, or any textbook you were supposed to read, throughout all of college. Anything was fair game. It was hard not to spend at least time thinking about what would happen if you failed. I got some advice from a friend. You can spend time studying, or you can spend part of your time studying and part thinking about failing, but if you spend all your time studying you increase your chances of passing. Simple, but when you are in the midst of it, you have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees.

Making progress is what advances the business and creates momentum. Focusing on things that are not on your list, are not on your list that day, or that need to happen, takes away from that progress. When you focus on the risk and bigger picture concerns, it can be debilitating. Focus on the tasks at hand.

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