Business Insight Zone

Waaay back in my college-bachelor days, I managed to keep my dance card reasonably full — despite a paltry bankroll and the un-Cary Grant-like face you see in the sidebar — simply because . . . I talked to women.

I know, I know, I am just full of breathtakingly original strategies.

Yet my massively oversimplified approach — talk to lots of girls, be nice to everybody — got me a lot more dates than a buddy of mine. He easily had as much to offer as I did to prospective girlfriends, but he was too full of theories about how he should go about it, when would be the perfect time to make his move, and so on.

Don’t overthink.

Thing is, our smarty-pants brains love to come up with reasons why not, reasons to delay, reasons we’re not ready. And it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about asking for a date, launching a new project, asking for a raise, or starting an entrepreneurial venture.

Sure, sometimes you need to concern yourself with timing. I wouldn’t recommend opening your summer action-blockbuster movie on the same weekend as the sequel to Iron Man, for example. I wouldn’t recommend paying a call to Wal-Mart’s buying offices before your infrastructure can be ramped up to fill any order they might choose to place.

But unless there’s a specific, compelling reason to delay . . . press “Play,” walk right up to the object of your attentions, and ask if you can have this dance.

A confession

Sometimes I struggle with pressing the “Publish” button for posts on this blog. I want to do more homework, or I’m not sure which post I should work on first, or . . . well, it doesn’t matter, does it? The point is, I can be prone to delay.

The antidote: work straight through, get it done, then send it out into the world. If it needs fixing, I can fix it — just like, back when I said something goofy to those college co-eds, I could laugh at myself and say “Let’s try that again.”

How do YOU overcome the tendency to delay?

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(Picture by Robyn Gallagher.)