Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Most of you know the adage, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

We put junk in the attic and stop thinking about it. We avoid the mirror so we stop worrying about our wrinkles. We go away on vacation and stop thinking about the repairs at home.

These are all ways to avoid things we prefer not to stress over.

As a remodeler, there are times when you have so much on your mind that it’s hard to focus on what’s most important: What makes this a successful year or not? What makes you a better business? How are you positioned for the future?

I tend to be very disciplined with time because I want the bandwidth to think about the right topics without all the noise.

As an example, many years ago, as we were growing the business, I began to get more calls from clients about issues with their projects, not a higher frequency of issues).

These problems absorbed more and more of my day and began to affect my thinking. I became overly concerned about the quality of our product. I questioned competency. It would consume me.

One day, I shared this dynamic with my head of production, and we created a simple system. 

When a client called me with a concern, I would tell my head of production. He would then let the client know that he’d address the issue, and if they were not 100% comfortable, they could call me. He’d then provide a brief update in 24 hours. 

I share this story because it allowed me to return to thinking about the important things. While “out of sight, out of mind” has many uses, here are a few simple ways to apply the concept in your business.

1. Fill your day with the important things and there will be less room for distractions that distort your thinking.

2. Know your top three priorities and try to spend 80% of your time on these.

3. Explain to direct reports that exposing you to everything makes it hard to focus on the big picture.

4. Ask others to be your eyes and ears and filter things back to you.

5. Don’t let the small stuff disable you.

This advice in no way suggests that you should distance yourself. I think it is still important to do walkabouts in the office, monthly project tours, random client calls, and pop into team meetings.

The difference is that you need to control your day and not have it controlled by others.