Sunday, December 02, 2007

Don't Futz with Your Business

My dear sainted mother used to use the word "futz" a lot. Here are a few uses for the word:

- Quit futzing around.
- Don't futz with that.

To futz is to play with something or meddle with it when you should be leaving it alone. For example, when you're making something, there comes a time when you glue it in place and then you have to just sit and wait.

If you futz with it, for example by moving a part to see if the glue is dry, you're likely to reduce the quality of the final product. It's not that you will ruin the craft, but maybe that one piece will just never go back to exactly where it was supposed to be.

Another example is when you plant seeds. You wait and wait, but no plant appears. When one day there's a little crack in the soil, you want to chip it out to help the plant break through. That's futzing. The plant will be just fine without your futzing.

We futz because we're eager to see the fruits of our labor. We've put something together and we want to see if it works the way it's supposed to.

Very often, we futz too much with our businesses. We put a new process in place -- maybe HaaS or managed services. That's a big, major change.

Once you make a change like that, it is very tempting to futz with it.

In other words, you don't give the new program a chance before you start making little changes here and there. You find yourself constantly checking up on it. Playing a little here, playing a little there.

Stop futzing.

If you've thought through your plan, you have a good plan, and it's all in place, then leave it alone for awhile. Let the plan work. Take notes, collect them, and do some revisions after a period of time.

In the meantime, put all that excitement and nervous energy into the next project.

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