• You need to hire a developer
• You must reach sales objectives
• Your product is not actually finished, yet again
• You’ve been raising funds that never come
• The team is doing just OK
• Little things, ideas and initiatives are piling up on your agenda

But you still believe that at some point, it will get better. After all it’s normal for an entrepreneur or any busy person to be kind of lost in his own agenda sometimes.

I believe this is wrong, and nothing magical will happen unless one pushes things towards measurable achievements through day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute actions. One must decide to take those steps that will actually lead to either fail or succeed.

The vast majority of us is affected by this issue: we suck at making decisions, therefore closing and moving forward.

Decide : de CIDE (de side’) v.
To cut off uncertainty; reach a decision

The underlying trivial principle

The last 10% that we’re currently missing is what will make our chance to succeed 90% higher. It is just the application of the Pareto principle.

No one ever achieved anything by piling up ongoing actions. A decision/trade-off point must be reached, even partial but determined.

There is a slight chance that right now, while you’re reading this, your un-decisions are higher than your decisions.

Number both of them. Do count every time you don’t do things, cut or trade-off. It can happen several times for the same thing. You’ll see how freaking high that number can be compared with the decisions you actually took. If you have or want to postpone one, just do it once and for real.

Excuses are for the ones who give up

Every single day I get an email or meet up with someone asking me if I know where/how to find a developer? While the question seems legitimate, I’m often worried to observe that they did not really look for one, otherwise the question would sound more like this: “I’ve tried the_following_actions and reached X, met up with Y… what else can I do?” — Someone who needs to hire a developer does three simple things: he reaches out to people through every possible channel, he chases and meets with them, and finally hires them. Reach is maximized by digging into LinkedIn, GitHub, Twitter, forums, meetups. Candidates must be wooed with a story, a purpose, promises of a great venture. They’re hired because they’re talented / keen to learn fast, and they fit with the rest of the team. One does not stop until that perfect candidate is found. Otherwise this is not hiring.

It’s a similar story with sales. Selling is core and one of the hardest missions a company must cope with, but the underlying theory behind it is pretty simple: You engage a conversation, build a relationship, close a deal. This is a funnel that one must track and master. And there are only two possible outcomes when you’re selling something: working / not working. If it’s not working, it’s because either you suck at selling your product, or your product sucks at finding a market-fit and you must keep working on it.

Decisions keep us moving forward. At the end of the day, we’re either making excuses or fighting to reach milestones.

Starting today

I guess you got my point. But no one changed his habits within a day. The best thing to try first is probably to apply a fast decision-making process to your personal life: nice words to your girlfriend, calling your parents, making breakfast for your beloved ones, working out…

Set-up a timeframe within which things shall happen and on a regular basis. Figure out if you’re in a decision-making process or just the contrary. It’s binary.

Every action is the result of a decision