When you read a lot of business articles, you come to a point where there are arguments for both sides, and you really have to think which better applies to you.

For sometime, I have been believing that if you open a store, the one thing you should do is to make sure that you have a big welcome door – the theory of course is that you make it easy for people to come in, but difficult to get out…

I was just going over an alternative strategy that purportedly Macy’s used in good effect in the 1930s thus beating many department stores  then — the strategy being that make the entrance door small.

Of course, then you create a perpetual saga that there are people lining up to get in and I guess you know good traffic which builds a semblance of good business brings in more traffic.  This is most highlighted sometimes in restaurants where people are willing to stand in line and crowd a restaurant — the longer waiting time, the better.  After all, if people are lining up, the store must be good ….

What do you think?

I am putting on another ode to sometimes take a step back.

Last night, for some reason, the internet slowed.

I always try to accomplish as much in as short a time, and like myself, I immediately setup the computer to do as many things as it could ( the computer is better than multi-tasking as a human — it will slow down but at least unlike people, it won’t drop the ball or become confused.  Nowadays, dual and quad core PCs which processors can multitask because it has two or four brains are much valued…  but that’s still another story).

When I logged in, I  immediately start downloading my news, my email, and start also opening multi-tabs of websites that I need to check.  Since the internet was slow, opening myriads means each application comes to a crawl, and ultimately displays an error message.

I keep retrying a couple of times, and after half an hour, I sighed in frustration.  There was no way  I could get it done if I insisted that it did all at the same time, so I close down some applications that was not as important and urgent, and finally the applications that I deemed more important started moving.

That happens to us in real life as well.  There will be a time that we will be overwhelmed, and the bandwidth ( or your mental and physical capacity) just cannot handle the task at hand.  At that moment, we need to stop, focus and reprioritize.  

If you are already overworked, don’t insist in doing it all!  How many things are you doing now that will matter 1 or 2 years from now?

As the Chinese say, " Two steps forward, one step back.".  Sometimes we need to step back to move forward.   UNCLOG!

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