🎯 Work Smart Wednesday - July 10, 2024
Why you can't switch off (and how to use that to your advantage), a funny ad I enjoyed this week, and a quote on the order of experience
Work Smart Wednesday
👋 Hey there!
Here is your weekly dose of Work Smart Wednesday
In these emails I will share with you 3 things to help you work smarter.
1. 😵💫 Why you can't switch off (and how to use that to your advantage)
One of the most common complaints among entrepreneurs (and those they surround themselves with!) is that it is difficult to “switch off” from their business.
I have seen this myself numerous times - working 40 hours straight over one weekend when I first started my brewery years ago, or not really being “present” for family moments when managing my international teams with Global Digital Week.
When I finally realised that it was time for a change - that I didn’t need to feel overwhelmed or busy all the time - one of the first things I stumbled upon that genuinely helped me was called the Zeigarnik Effect.
Long story short your brain kind of opens “tabs” for each task you do, much like your internet browser. This can help or hinder, depending on how you use it.
The effect was first noticed with waiters in a restaurant having incredible memory for orders that haven't been delivered yet, but instantly forgetting what you ordered when it comes to paying the bill.
Here's how it works:
The Zeigarnik Effect occurs when you're interrupted in the middle of a task or you stop working on it before completion, which creates an “open cognitive loop” (like an open tab).
Entrepreneurs often fail to complete tasks due to their size or a distraction - 1001 different projects or tasks to complete, an “important” email, an urgent meeting, etc. As a result, we often have hundreds of open cognitive loops running in our brain at any given moment. This is one of the major reasons entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed and easily distracted pretty much all of the time.
There are two great, and very different, ways to use this effect:
To improve your focus and mental clarity, shut down unnecessary tabs.
Brain Dump all the tasks, thoughts, and to-dos swirling through your brain.
Once your brain knows these are safely stored somewhere, it has an easier time of letting them go. I like to write everything down on paper, remove tasks that I then realise don’t matter or don’t make sense, and then schedule the rest into my calendar.
Now that you've freed up some cognitive bandwidth, it's time to redeploy the Zeigarnik Effect, but this time, with intention...
To make tasks easier to start, intentionally keep 'tabs' open
I do this by intentionally stopping certain activities before they reach a natural "stopping point".
For example, everybody knows the hardest part of writing a book is staring at the blank page. One solution, therefore, is to never start with a blank page. This means never ending a writing session at the end of a chapter or a paragraph or even a sentence.
Social media uses this with the endless scroll, and some games employ this well like Civ 6 never really having a hard boundary that you can mark as a stopping point. There is always something you need to do…
You can do this with work you need to do but you find difficult to start. Keep the tab open, you will be more keen to just finish that little bit off and then it is easier to just keep going (thank you, consistency principle)
🆕 This month’s resource for referrals has been updated - you can now earn my template “Easy Offers Summary Table”.
🎁 Receive rewards for referring your friends 🎁
📩 A simple table to outline and improve your offers. This template is not sold anywhere, and is only normally available to those that work with me 1:1. I rotate these templates monthly. This template is only available in July.
2. 📺 An ad I enjoyed this week
This ad was sent to me by a friend and fellow entrepreneur, Charlotte. A short watch (2 mins), but worth it.
I like it for two main reasons:
It uses humour to engage. This ad is so good it is like native content, increasing the desire to engage and share. Though that might not be what made it go viral…
It really helps the customer to self-diagnose. Often, people don’t actually know they have a problem. This ad gives examples of the pain their solution solves.
Now, the important question: was this advert good?
I enjoyed it, yes, but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily a good advert. A good advert delivers on its objectives.
I don’t have inside knowledge on what the objective of this ad was, but if it was brand awareness then it has done fantastically (>2.2m YT views, millions of impressions across other channels) and I certainly know of the teamwork.com brand now when I didn’t before (though I have still never used it!).
However, if the objectives were to convert people into users then experience suggests it might not have been particularly effective. I couldn’t know for sure without seeing the data, but even after seeing the ad a few times I am not really sure on exactly what teamwork.com does. I believe it is software, but in all honesty I have a bit of software fatigue with so many options existing - I need them to show me why they’re different. There is no display of what it looks like, or how specifically it can help me.
Either way, it has got me talking about it so that is some kind of win for them. If you have used Teamwork.com I would be keen to hear what it actually is and whether it is worth my testing out some time! Let me know :)
If you haven’t used it, then I hope you have some small takeaways to keep in mind for your own ads. My takeaway? Help people to see the symptoms of their problems for awareness, AND how you specifically solve those problems for conversion.
In context of my services, I solve many of the problems alluded to in the ad. For example, how to deal with bad clients. But my solution is focused on regaining your time without you sacrificing profit, personalised to your business, and provided on a 1:1 basis with unlimited sessions…
3. 💡 Quote I'm pondering
"Not having heard of it is not as good as having heard of it. Having heard of it is not as good as having seen it. Having seen it is not as good as knowing it. Knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice” - Xunzi
The ad reminded me of this quote - as, in my opinion, the ad only achieves the first step - but this is something I see all the time with clients.
Sometimes, I “consult” - I answer questions directly, I tell clients exactly what the right course of action is. I tend to do this when clients are really stuck and facing a crunch point. Often, clients need “consulting” when we first start together and that is absolutely fine. We need to get you to a point of safety before it is reasonable to expect you to consider bigger picture stuff (the things that make a real difference!).
Other times, I “coach”. I make people aware of things they might not otherwise be able to see - be it because of lack of understanding of things like data, or they don’t know what options exist, or because they are too close to the problem. I help people find the solution to the problem themselves. This helps bring about real epiphanies, lifechanging insights that impact everything, and it reaches much deeper than consulting can. I find that the vast majority of people know the answer, they just need the right question.
Both consulting and coaching have their place. The information “sticks” better when it is coached, the lesson tends to be more fully absorbed and a more lifelong and more positive change takes place. However, it takes longer. It isn’t much use to somebody to have an epiphany after everything has collapsed around them because they didn’t get the help they needed in time. Consulting fills that gap. With consulting, I provide an answer quickly, knowing that it is a temporary fix to get people into a point where they can do the important stuff.
I often have to play with Zeigarnik Effect to achieve these results, and aid self diagnosis like the ad does, in order to achieve the right effect within clients.
What about with your customers - do they need an answer now, or a deeper epiphany? Do they need a tab opened or closed? What is the transformation you help them achieve? How can you bring about their awareness, and show them what it really looks like, in your marketing? And which of these things do you need right now?
👋 Want to work together?
When you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:
🔍 Clarity Call - We will discuss your situation and create a step-by-step action plan together so you know exactly what you need to do next for maximum impact
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That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What did you find most useful? What do you want more or less of? Reply to this email now and let me know
Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about it😊
Have a great week,
John
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