Sharon, president of a Portland Heating and Air Conditioning company, told session 7 of the Leadership Development Lab (LDL).

I started my company a little over five years ago and we have grown steadily in the direction of the vision that I had foreseen when I founded the firm. Last summer, I invited an associated to buy into the company. The goal was to help accelerate at an even faster pace the growth we were experiencing. Our understanding was that he would buy me out in five to seven years when I retired! We struggled the first ten months. One of our challenges was keeping unproductive employees we should have dismissed. We were running the risk of hiring and firing without a company policy manual.

Keeping un-productive employees when you are growing is an even bigger problem. We were afraid to dismiss these employees because we didn't have a policy manual and were afraid we wouldn't be legal so we didn't let some production people go. I knew that our company policy manual was a priority that really needed to be completed but it seemed the pressures of everyday work always took priority.

I know now that I was succumbing to the tyranny of the urgent, instead of focusing on the vital few-the important issues that really matter in the long run. Session three of the LDL, when the class was presented the challenge of applying five times

more enthusiasm commitment in action effort toward a goal or task that we had been procrastinating on, I knew instantly that completing our company policy manual would be my goal.

Over the past 4 weeks I have spent a lot of hours writing and rewriting our company policy manual so we would have a fair employee driven policy which would protect the rights of our employees and our company. I found myself excited and pleased with the outcome. Now our employees and management know exactly what is expected. We all have clearly spelled out standards to follow. This is helping everyone make a bigger contribution to the success of our company. I already feel more confident.

The lesson I learned from this experience is when I come up against a challenge that seems too difficult to meet, one that grows each day I procrastinate, to apply five times more enthusiasm. I learned to stop wasting time procrastinating and go after my goal head long.

The action I call you to take is to stop procrastinating and take charge of your time. Deal with your goals with committed passion, fire, and energy. The benefit you will gain is a sense of accomplishment as you move past the three P's (Perfectionism, Procrastination and Paralysis) that kill achievement to the one P that really matters, (Progress) Progress means success.