Most people have the habit of postponing things at a later date even though they know that it will put a lot of burden on them at later stages. This applies for all age groups as well as to all people irrespective of whichever field they are working in. Being a business owner or if you are planning to become one, you cannot afford to delay things. The effects of procrastination in business are far-reaching. Procrastination or unnecessary delaying of things due to any reason could be detrimental for your personal growth as well as for your business.
You look at any successful business stories in India and you will find that they have no place of procrastination in business at all. Evolvers is one such startup which has been empowering, evolving and engaging with each other to meet the needs of the SMEs which used to remain pending for long. https://evolvers.co.in/about/
There could be various reasons why most people suffer from this issue. It may be due to some sort of fear. Sometimes people working in the office feel that a particular task assigned to them is very difficult. At that point of time procrastination in business occurs as employees try to avoid that task at any cost or prefer that the concerned task should be handled by someone else. There might be some tasks which we dislike or are not of our interest areas hence one tries to put off tasks like that. But one needs to understand that sooner or later one has to do those tasks in waiting as they impact the proper working of the organization.
Another reason why people procrastinate is that they find a job or work that they are doing as boring and repetitive. But one must understand that if you are working in a particular organization then you have no choice of your own. You need to abide by all the rules and regulations of the organization in which you are working. On the other hand, entrepreneurs know that they need to lead by example and hence the founders themselves ensure that they are accountable for their tasks at hand and make sure their teams also remain accountable toward their work and perform it with full dedication.
Thus, the companies where there are open discussion and responsibilities are clearly stated and the founder himself is leading from the front by showing discipline attitude and doing task timely, then their team also does work with the same spirit.
Most of the entrepreneurs know that networking plays a
great role in the very venture. They understand that a strong professional
network will go a long way in finding solutions to tasks which might seem
impossible at first and were getting unnecessarily delayed. This is why Evolvers
have been continuously and in a very rapid manner have been growing their network.
Let us see why procrastination is bad for business and why it is a cause of worry, what it results in etc:-
Contents
1. Opportunities getting missed
You ask any famous startup or maybe an entrepreneur of a particular organization and they will tell you that opportunities do not strike twice. They will also tell you that in business they have to face a lot of unforeseen circumstances over which they do not have any control. Every business entrepreneur has seen more failures in their life before getting successful. But the difference between how to become a good entrepreneur and why some entrepreneurs succeed in their life is that they see opportunities in every failure they encountered and they create opportunities for themselves instead of waiting for it to come to them.
If an entrepreneur does not take advantage of the opportunity coming his way, then the competitor will be ready to snatch the opportunity from your hand which could provide to be a major roadblock for your business as today is survival of the fittest world scenario. Hence, business leaders must evaluate all the options and quickly arrive at a decision ad must remain committed towards it.
2. Customer relationship gets spoilt
One of the main effects of procrastination for business is that your relationship with your customers will be affected to a great extent. You may not see the changes taking place in initial stages but gradually it might impact your business and could even lead to the closure of your business which you have built over the years with a lot of hard work. To win big in a start-up industry you need to ensure that you consider your customer as your major priority and provide replies to their queries promptly.
3. The brand image of business gets affected
Every successful entrepreneur knows that the reputation of their organization holds a lot of importance for them. To ensure that it keeps on growing and capturing larger market share and even for entering new markets, they need to ensure that their customers are satisfied with their services. But due to procrastination problem sometimes it happens that timely complaints are not adhered to of the customers and even some employees postpone their work because of finding that task boring, or they might not be interested in doing that task on a particular day or they might be finding the task too difficult, etc.
Due to these activities, the image of the startup can be impacted to a great extent. One of the most important things to keep in mind as an entrepreneur is that in today’s digital world anyone can find out about how your business is doing, what your customers are saying about your business and can see what discussions are going on in the forum about your business. Hence one needs to ensure to set the right work culture and make everyone in their business understand about who is their topmost priority for the successful functioning of business operations to ensure that the relationship and trust with your customer are maintained and your brand keeps on growing in the market.
4. Heath of an individual gets affected
Procrastination in business operations can result in affecting both the personal health of an individual too apart from affecting the efficient working of the organization tasks. The regular habit of procrastination has been seen to be the major cause of serious health implication such as hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.
One may argue as to how health has anything to do with procrastination. The reality of the situation is that the habit of postponing tasks unnecessarily causes overburden of the workload at a later date which leads to additional stress being created. Due to this additional stress, our body reacts negatively and causes illness or sickness or other health issues. Hence it is for your betterment as well as for the organization that certain benchmarks are set so that employees know that their activities are continuously been monitored and what they have to complete by what date.
Also, the business leader must tell its staff members about why procrastination is bad for business and their individual growth and must motivate them and involve them in providing useful suggestions which could lead to the growth of organization so that they feel like an invaluable part of the company and work to their fullest potential. By working this way, the procrastination can be eradicated to a great extent after all one just requires changing their mindset and thinking regarding this issue and rest can be taken care of. They should not take it lightly and see it as a serious impediment to their growth.
5. Goals are not achieved in a time-bound manner.
To be counted among the successful business stories in India, every startup must have documentation and tracker sheet and it should be shared with every staff member so that everyone is aware of their roles and responsibilities daily and can work accordingly. When one has things in writing and that too on a high order priority basis, no one needs to ask each other and it would result in more focus oriented work.
Hence, to ensure that procrastination does not delay in achieving your company goals and your personal growth, work as per the documentation. One must prepare a to-do- list in their personal life and must work on the high priority areas as the very first thing in the morning. This way they will ensure their success while simultaneously contributing towards the goals of the organization. Tim urban presented beautifully as to what goes in the mind of procrastinators in a very beautiful way in his ted talk and you can read about the same through this blog post.
Hence the key to avoid procrastination and to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in India is to ensure that your goals are in writing, everyone is aware of their daily priorities and then working in a focused way in the desired direction.