{"id":94,"date":"2006-02-02T19:45:52","date_gmt":"2006-02-02T19:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/?p=94"},"modified":"2010-05-08T19:46:34","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T19:46:34","slug":"what-will-you-stop-doing-in-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/what-will-you-stop-doing-in-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"What will you stop doing in 2006?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the best business books I read last year was Good to Great<\/span><\/a>\"\" by Jim Collins. It’s based on an impressive five-year study of companies that made the leap from good to great\u00a0 . . . and comparable companies that failed to make the leap.<\/p>\n

Even though its focus is on corporations, most of the principles work very well for individual entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

Here’s one of the best tips:<\/p>\n

Start a “Stop Doing” list.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Collins noted that the companies he studied which moved from good to great “did not focus principally on what to do<\/em> to become great; they focused equally on what not<\/em> to do and what to stop<\/em> doing.”<\/p>\n

In 2005 I eliminated three unprofitable business ventures in order to focus on what I do best that has the most long-term potential.\u00a0 These endeavors were diluting my focus and causing me to expend limited time and energy for less profit.<\/p>\n

It just didn’t make good business sense, for example, to devote an entire Saturday to hosting a scrapbook workshop (even though I love scrapbooking) for what might be only $100 profit when I could make much more than that by working the same number of hours editing a book.<\/p>\n

When my freelance book editing business was just getting off the ground again when my then-husband left 5 years ago, it made sense to use my scrapbook business to fill in the gaps between editing jobs. Once my editing work was coming in steadily enough to keep me busy all the time, though, I actually lost<\/span> money by hosting scrapbooking events rather than editing.<\/p>\n

I should have quit the scrapbooking business at least one year ago, or maybe even two.\u00a0 But I hung on because: (1)\u00a0I\u00a0love scrapbooking, (2) I was sentimental about it, (3) I liked the perks of getting my own stuff at cost, (4) I liked the consultant newsletter, and (5) I really wanted to make it to the 10-year anniversary (it would have been 9 years this March).\u00a0\u00a0Those aren’t\u00a0sound reasons for making business decisions. Yes, it’s important to love what you do, but not everything you love\u00a0needs to be a business.\u00a0(I also happen to love editing.)<\/p>\n

This was a classic case of the good being the enemy of the best (or at least the better).<\/p>\n

So, my challenge to you is this:<\/p>\n

What will be on your “Stop Doing” list this year?<\/p>\n

Mary Jo Tate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the best business books I read last year was Good to Great by Jim Collins. It’s based on an impressive five-year study of companies that made the leap from good to great\u00a0 . . . and comparable companies that failed to make the leap. Even though its focus is on corporations, most of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}