Here’s a scenario you might be able to relate to: my printer stops working. I know this happened before, but it was several months ago and although I remember that I did something very simple to get it going again, I can’t remember what it was. So I spend a frustrating hour or two until I hit upon the solution again.

I don’t think it’s early Alzheimer’s because frankly I’ve always been this way. When I was a kid, one of my nicknames was The Absent Minded Professor (and that was just my parents).

Recently I hit upon the idea of creating an IFAQ for myself–a list of Infrequently Asked Questions. The frequently asked ones, I can remember. It’s the ones that come up every few months or less that are the problem.

Now when something comes up that I might need to know again in the future, I add it to the list. I guess when there are enough to make it a hassle to look through I will organize them by topic but for the moment it’s just one list.

If this happens to you, why not save time and avoid stress by creating your own IFAQ?

The natural reflex is to say, “I don’t suppose I do”…even if you do. They’re leading you into a negative state of mind and toward a negative answer.

You might be surprised how often this kind of thing creeps into sales. Here’s an example: In one of the current writing magazines, a columnist suggests that writers call independent bookstores and ask them to stock their book. She gives an example of the script she uses when making such calls:

“Good morning, my name is (whatever), and I am an author. Unfortunately, I live nowhere near you. I am in (town). I have a couple of books that are out, and I was hoping you might be interested in putting a couple of copies on your shelf.”

The part that strikes me as a strange choice is saying as almost the first thing that she doesn’t live anywhere near the bookshop. Maybe she’s anticipating that the bookstore owner will ask whether she’s a local author, but why start with a negative? The manager may never ask. If he or she does, she can be honest, but ideally she would have a better answer than just ‘no.’ For example, “No, but I have a blog that’s pretty widely read and I’m sure that includes people in your area.” In fact, I’d tell the manager that I plan to put the details about their bookshop on my website so that people in that area know where they can find my book.

My main point is that it’s almost never a good idea to lead with a negative, because it focuses attention on something you don’t want the other person to think about, at least not at first. Secondly, try to have an antidote to any negative that you can’t avoid.  In sales, negativity generally equals no sale.

It’s what we have to do–check our email, Twitter, LinkedIn, catch that newcast and that podcast, and maintain the company blog and vlog and have a peek at that YouTube video everybody’s talking about, and check to make sure our Android hasn’t just called our Blackberry.

Sure it’s hectic but at least we’re doing stuff and learning stuff and–

Aren’t we?

The New York Times reports that we may be stopping ourselves from processing and remembering information if we don’t take some time away from constant stimulation. The article by Matt Richtel, says:

“Almost certainly, downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories,” said Loren Frank, assistant professor in the department of physiology at the university, where he specializes in learning and memory. He said he believed that when the brain was constantly stimulated, “you prevent this learning process.”

Activities like exercising, taking a walk, or waiting for a bus or train used to give us time to think about nothing in particular. Now it’s rare to see someone doing any of these without listening to music, texting, phoning, playing a game on their phone, or some combination of those.

One person they interviewed who found himself constantly checking his phone made a very astute observation. “It’s become a demand,” he said. “Not a demand of my customer, but a demand of my head.”

I think that’s a key point–we may feel that others demand that be contactable 24/7, but do they really? Or does it just make us feel more important to think so? Would we be any less successful if we just took a walk, noticed the trees and the other people passing by, or let our minds wander where they will?

I’m going to do that now–go out and look at a tree. Or at least take a picture of one with my iPhone, to look at when I have time.

In practice usually we think of necessity and limitations as a pain in the behind.

However, reality often bears out the cliche, as in the case of one of the members of the Monty Python group, Terry Gilliam.

In his pre-Monty Python days, Terry Gilliam did caricatures for a show called “We Have Ways of Making You Laugh.” He suggested doing an animated short film for them and he told Vice magazine “They gave me two weeks and £400 [$600} to make it. The only way to do that was to simply cut out the drawings and move them around. No one had ever seen anything like that on television before, and overnight I became an animator. [laughs] That started a second season of Do Not Adjust Your Set. There were six of us then, and that became Python.”

It’s interesting how often limitations lead to something innovative–if we approach them creatively instead of fighting them.

Make a list of the limitations that you find the most frustrating about your business. Then take some time to brainstorm how you could embrace them instead of fighting them. It might just lead you to a breakthrough, too.

Kind of a paradox, isn’t it?

That’s why I suggest what I call the simplest time management system in the world. It has four steps:

1. Make a list of everything you need to do.

2. Do the one that seems like the next logical step. During this, avoid looking at your list.

3. When you’ve done that one thing, go back to the list and pick another.

4. Keep going.

That’s it. Now stop reading and start on step one.

How many words does it take for you to tell us? Here’s a challenge: do it in six.

If you need inspiration, go to www.sixwordstories.net.

Probably the best (certainly the most heart-breaking) example of a six word story came from Ernest Hemingway:

“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”

Heavy! But it shows you what can be done.

Domino’s Pizza did it: “Hot pizza, thirty minutes or less.”

How can you tell your story in six words? When you’ve figured that out, you’ve got great material for your website, your elevator speech, maybe even your letterhead and business card.

1. You can’t go wrong with dogs. The two that tied for first place both featured dogs. In one, a guy teased a dog from behind a glass door, tempting it with a treat. It rushed the door, pushing it over and trapping the man under it; the other was about a man who asked his friend to dog-sit, saying the dogs will do anything he says, and then shows a party in progress with the dogs serving drinks and snacks, etc.

2. People like a story. Both of the examples above have a very simple story–more of a joke, really, but there is a beginning, middle and a surprise end. The third-place ad featured a little boy in a Darth Vader costume, trying in vain to use The Force to move objects, until finally he tries it on his father’s car and its engine springs to life, to the boy’s amazement. We see that his father has used his remote control to start the car. Very charming and a clear story.

3. Humor works only if it’s funny. One of the lowest-rated (by people who voted online) was a supposed satire of a game show, called “Cram It in the Boot,” featuring a contestant cramming a lot of stuff into the boot of a new Mini. I think cramming it in the boot was supposed to be a double entendre but it just wasn’t funny on any level. Also unfunny were a couple of talking baby ads and a couple featuring chimps in suits.

4. If you’re going to make jokes at peoples’ expense, choose people who deserve to be made fun of. One of the Groupon adverts features Timothy Hutton saying: “Mountainous Tibet–one of the most beautiful places in the world. This is Timothy Hutton. The people of Tibet are in trouble, their very culture in jeopardy.” Then he suddenly lightens up and continues, “But they still whip up an amazing fish curry. And since 200 of us bought on Groupon.com, we’re getting $30 worth of Tibetan food for just $15.” OK, I like dark humor but this came off as unfeeling without actually being funny. Also, fish curry isn’t really a Tibetan dish…Did it get lots of attention for Groupon? Sure. Was it the good kind? Not so sure.

I’d say the main lesson, though, is if you tell a story people will pay attention and if the humour touches the heart (as it did in the little Darth Vader ad) the story becomes stronger.

In a recent interview, filmmakers the Coen brothers said that when silent-film maker Hal Roach had a story conference, he’d bring in an inmate from the local insane asylum to join in. This person was known as “the wildie” because when his opinion was solicited he’d come up with something totally wild.

His ideas were not usable but they would spur wilder (but productive) thinking on the part of the others in the meeting.

No, I’m not suggesting you try to bring an insane person into your meeting, but rather that you ask someone to play that role–to blurt out whatever crazy idea they have. It’s then the job of the rest of you to figure out how turn that into something usable, even if that means changing it totally.

For sure it’ll make your meetings more interesting!

One of his key points is that although everybody says the way to prosper is to identify a problem and solve it, there are many successful ventures that don’t do this. His example is “Little Miss Matched,” a company that sells mis-matched socks in sets of three, a quirky fashion statement that has led to six retail stores employing more than 150 people. Nobody was saying, “You know what really bothers me? I can’t find a place to buy mis-matched socks.”

We’re all told constantly that it’s all about solving our customers’ problems and certainly that’s important. But it can also be useful to spend a little time each month or so thinking about how we could create (or modify) a product or service that would make our customers’ lives more fun. Here are a few random ideas off the top of my head–I’m sure you can do better!

In the highly-competitive coffee shop world, how about emulating the word of wines with a coffee-tasting evening?

In the declining world of book stores, how about setting aside a page of your website for the publication of stories by local aspiring authors? A local writer’s group could do the selecting for you.

If you’re a fitness personal trainer, why not organize a fun run for all of your clients, finishing with a juice at a local juice bar?

Often problem solutions are about what people need–but they’re even more willing to spend money on things they just want!

It’s better to start with some simple tools. One that often is overlooked, maybe because it is so simple, is the humble checklist. Atul Gawande wrote a whole book about it: “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.” In it, he relates how using checklists had a huge impact on reducing errors and disasters in the operating room. After all, pilots use checklists before take-off, why shouldn’t we?

Here are some times that a checklist can save you from serious problems:

• When you’re in a rush and likely to overlook some things you need to do
• When somebody less familiar with what needs to be done needs to do it (for instance, if you’re off sick or called away suddenly)
• When it’s a process you don’t do often enough to memorize it
• When it’s a procedure that keeps changing–a list can keep you on top of the changes

What parts of your business could benefit from using checklists?