Have you ever been waylaid by IYFS?

Help!  I’m being attacked by IYFS: In-Your-Face-Syndrome!

In Your Face: Like the buzzing mosquito won’t let yo’ forget it…

— Anonymous

Worse than the flu bug that goes away after a few miserable days, IYFS has hijacked my month’s productivity with a horde of clamoring priorities…each one vying for attention, each demanding “do this now!”  You might remember that last month I complained about “chasing too many objectives.”  And, four weeks later, despite my efforts to focus on one primary objective, other less-important tasks have repeatedly deflected me from my mission… I’ve been:

• Doing those things that are simply easy or comfortable.
• Working frantically on something that seemed critical only to belatedly discover that had it been left undone no one but me would have known or cared.
• Hustling to complete a task that flamed into being because of someone else’s poor planning.  I found it easier to acquiesce than to declare: Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part!
• And, only occasionally, trudging slowly towards completion of that important, long term project…

For the last month I’ve been deciding what to work on next based upon the intensity of the clamor instead of the importance of the task.  And, just to make matters worse I admit that lately what’s often buzzing in my face is stupid, flitty, inconsequential quandaries like deciding what to have for dinner, jotting down my “to buy” list, opening or closing the house because of weather conditions, getting the car washed, deciding if I will walk now or later… All this GIGO, garbage in, garbage out, is further distracting me from the really important stuff.  All in all, I’m feeling quite discombobulated by the buzz, buzz, buzzing that’s in my face.

How can I go about making my most vital objective the first thing I set about accomplishing each day?  Or, in artist’s terms, how do I keep that one most important goal in the foreground while continuing to keep the rest of the stuff grinding along in the background?  I need a plan.

First… You Download the Details

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done recommends creating a master list as your first step towards managing priorities:

…you either want nothing on your mind or you want to keep stuff on your mind. If you want nothing on your mind, you absolutely must rigorously download everything that is potentially meaningful, decide the outcome and action steps embedded in those, and park those in some place you trust you’re going to look at, at the right time.  (emphasis is mine)

Why? Well he theorizes that emptying your brain leaves you free to focus on the really important few tasks.  Seems like a good idea.  It’s the “rigorous downloading” that intimidates me.  See Allen’s blog GTDtimes.com for further instruction!

Then, It’s TOMA to the Rescue!

In advertising, TOMA – Top Of Mind Awareness is what happens “when people think of you first to fulfill their product or service needs.” That’s what I need – something that makes me think first of my highest priority before reacting to the swarming IYFS buzz.

But how do I go about achieving this TOMA state for my highest priority? Well, I can think of two sales and advertising tactics that I could adapt:

1.  An Elevator Speech: An elevator speech is a short memorable tagline that tells a prospect “what you do”… for this application, it should describe the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) for completing my highest priority.  Business author Mitch Briggs recommends using this formula to create a sales tagline:

• You know how (identify the problem)?
• What I do is (offer the benefit or solution).

But for this “elevator speech” I’d switch the second line to: If I focus on this priority then…

2.  Sticky Messages: Sticky Messages is a marketing term coined by authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath. In a review of their book, Minnesota-based business technologist, Doug Johnson said:

Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick; Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die suggest that “sticky ideas” have some common characteristics and that all of us can make our own ideas stickier. Sticky ideas:

• are simple
• have elements of the unexpected
• are concrete
• come from a credible source
• contain an emotional appeal
• use stories to make an impact

Since my motto is “out of sight, out of mind” I’m thinking that a bunch of VISUAL sticky messages would help me focus. And because I’m lazy as well as impatient, I think I’ll take a creative bye and blatantly paraphrase author of First Things First, Stephen Covey:

• Begin with the end in mind.
• Live out of your imagination not your history.
• Is this ladder leaning against the right wall?
• Don’t prioritize what’s on your schedule – schedule your priorities!
• Basing my happiness on my ability to control everything is futile.
• I can push back the borders of my limitations.
• I can produce creative experiences regularly, consistently, almost daily.
• By knowing what is deeply important to me and keeping that picture in mind, I can manage each day to be & to do what really matters most.
• Priority is a function of context.
• Private victories precede public victories; making and keeping promises to myself precedes making and keeping promises to others.

And lastly: The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. (Duh!)

We’ve “prettified” these “sticky messages” so that they can be cut and posted to where ever they’d be most effective. If you’d like, you can download Ellie's Sticky Messages ( 103.27 kB PDF document).

Three Promising Remedies for IYFS

So there you have it – three promising strategies for curing In Your Face Syndrome:

1. Download your master to-do list so that it’s not buzzing about in your brain.
2. Create an elevator speech that summarizes your highest priority so you can use it as your mantra for staying on track.
3. Make and post your own WIIFM “sticky messages” (or use mine) as visual reminders to do “first things first”.

My guess is that any one of these remedies, if consistently applied, will quiet those pesky mosquitoes that are buzzing in your face!

Do you have a cure for IYFS?