Don’t Get Distracted by the Shiny Object
Raise your hand if you are guilty of this: someone tells you about this cool new tool – usually an on-line tool, but not necessarily. It sounds really interesting, and you certainly don’t want to be accused of not being up on the latest toys. It’s use to you isn’t apparent right off the bat, but you give it some thought and come up with a problem it can help you solve…
If you don’t see the potential difficulty with this, fear not, you’re not alone.
We all too often see clients, colleagues and friends fall into the trap of inventing a problem so they can use a new tool to solve it. In so doing they more often than not either create several new problems, or really just end up creating more work for themselves that doesn’t really get them anywhere.
How do you avoid falling into this trap?
1) The 5-minute rule. If you can’t see how the tool will solve a problem you currently have within 5 minutes, you probably don’t need it right now. That’s not to say you won’t need it in the future, and it’s not to say you shouldn’t keep learning about what’s out there because who knows when you might need this. But for right now, don’t get sidetracked from what you need to be doing.
2) Your Wish List. If you don’t trust the 5-minute rule, take 5 more minutes and write out your existing wish-list (IE: “I wish I could better evaluate where off-line donations originated” or “I wish we could better _________). Again, if this new tool doesn’t solve one of your wishes, it’s probably not something you need right now.
3) Learn from others. If you’re still not convinced, find someone who is successfully using the tool and ask them why they started. You’ll be able to tell who really needed it from those who wanted to use the shiny new toy right away. Focus on those who needed it and learn why, what problem this solved and how this solved it. You may see symbiosis, but we are guessing if you’ve already done 1 & 2, you won’t.
We want to stress that just because you don’t need to use every cool new tool, that doesn’t mean you should stop learning about what’s out there. Who knows when you’ll need today’s tool…or even yesterday’s…in the future. What we are saying is you need to carefully evaluate what you use and spend time on before refocusing your valuable time, energy and money.