Are you easily taken by surprise? And then what; still no problem. Organizing is not always needed if you can improvise. Yet, even a small business needs to be organized in some kind of a way. You can’t run a business by only improvising.

Organizing activities is about planning these and assigning priorities to them. Important activities first, alternated with urgent ones that cannot wait any longer...for example.

But what about activities that are no activities yet. They are not there because there is no event that triggered them. But at any unexpected moment they could be knocking on your door. And than the question is, how do you know whether they are important, urgent or out of your scope?

A goalkeeper is to anticipate a possible attack. Now the keeper will know when there is danger, but when dealing with business you can’t really tell when your clients or prospects are showing up and one moment you are waiting for some action, the next moment it’s: “all hands on deck.”

So you should be organized. Being prepared is that aspect of your organization –- in the meaning of organizing activities -- where you know what to do when there is a real problem or issue.

Companies that are dependent of stock market performances are prepared by scripts and scenarios, which tell them what to do in case of a crash for example.

But not only in case of real challenges. Just think of the situation where your advisory business is a bit flat, you accept a consulting offer to experience only a week later the fact that an large job is waiting for you. Tough luck if you did accept the previous offer that was not really in line with your business.

You could have prevented this if you were prepared and organized. Instead you should tag business opportunities with labels for those you would accept, the one you certainly reject and leave a few behind for you wouldn’t (and can’t) control everything.

Hans Bool
http://www.astorwhite.com/