On TOTALLY Blowing a Deadline- and Now What?

April 16th, 2010

You might have noticed, I haven’t been writing on this blog much, not even my usual once-a-week post.

Though I know clients and future clients and former clients read this blog and though I try to include a takeaway with every post (that should be the official MYF motto: “A takeaway with every post!”), I consider this blog more of a form of self-expression than a business tool so it’s optional, depending upon what else is going on. (Don’t be offended. It’s not you, it’s me.)

Okay, so moving on…

You might remember a little over a month ago, I wrote a post in which I called myself out for falling behind on finishing the eBook I was working on to sell through my other site, Your Industry Insider. Let’s be honest- I had barely begun. Here is what I said at the time:

Here’s a rough list of what I need to do: Finalize the outline, finish reading the music business book, write a rough draft of the ebook, get feedback and rewrite as needed, get ebook cover made, create a page on YII through which to sell book, create bonuses for my Mogul Mindset eBlast recipients who buy the ebook first, get ebook formatted and in the correct format to sell, do announcement(s) on YII, create press release, do other marketing for ebook…

I vowed to do at least one thing a day every day for 30 days until, voila!, the ebook was finished and launched. This is what I said, this is what must have happened, right? The ebook is done, of course. Right? I mean, I’m a person who prides herself on juggling all of the tasks in her busy life. I help other people prioritize and manage their to-do lists. I meet deadlines.

And I probably did one thing a day almost every day for the last 30 days. Some days, I did two. Average of one thing a day. Which resulted in progress, but not the kind of progress needed to tackle the task. When you have five miles to go, walking a step or two a day is barely making a dent.

So then, the gods of time management shined upon me with some alone time while my husband and toddler flew off to Michigan to visit family. Surely I could get everything done in a week. Yes, I had other things to do- I did a conference call on webinars, I had the usual blogging, some around-the-house stuff- but it still seemed reasonable to me.

I think we see where this is going. I got the time and focus to take a good hard look at the project and I realized how much work was left to do, including research that I should’ve been doing all along, and I also started reading a book on launching ebooks and from that I got what exactly goes into a successful on-line product launch and… well, just writing about it makes me want to take a nap.

So here I am… can anyone relate? Any advice for hitting the reset button?

Related posts:

1. Rutbuster: The Power of Small Changes & Some “Me” Stuff

Filed under: personal stuff