Procrastination? It gets expensive!
Of course there are a lot of good reasons for hesitation, caution and even a temporary full stop! But, don't confuse those prudent moves (when appropriate) with procrastination! The former situations are usually just healthy parts of a process underway. The latter is usually about uninformed indecision, poor decision-making skills and hidden agendas. Let's take a good look at both constructs.
Because all Interior Design projects by their very definition are replete with details and cross-coordination, it is reasonable to expect occasional circumstances where a part of the process must pause. Perhaps there are factors that delay something from going forward because a needed component is on back order or has a production or shipping issue. Everything from the weather to mechanical or production glitches can temporarily bring part of the process to a halt. We view such circumstances as generally originating on the outside of our immediate process.
On the other side of the story, procrastination is ordinarily an inside issue. It is often difficult to analyze, and even more difficult to dissipate. When the principals involved find it difficult to resolve conflicts concerning choices, decisions are delayed. When that is a pattern, the trouble can ripple down the line, causing everything from minor annoyance to the compromise of an entire coordinated aspect of the project.
Repetitive, habitual procrastination can mean (to your team) that no “decision” can be regarded as dependable. When your Interior Design team identifies such a pattern, they must, in turn, qualify every communication to their sub-services as “conditional.” As it is clear to see, when a factor — a possible order, or a tentative decision — is on the table, you know right then that it must be revisited; and revisited! The cost escalates.
We all agree that time is money almost everywhere in the process of doing business. When choices cannot lead appropriately to efficient, firm decisions from which your Interior Design team can take action, it is easy to anticipate that time invested in that specific issue will be repetitive and therefore will cost more than it should!
Worst-case procrastination can involve green lighting a choice then changing direction after your team has moved forward on that green light. Primary problems arise and are often followed by secondary problems and misunderstandings. Hindsight gets muddy; the costs may run out of line with original projections and responsibility can fall into question.
Although your team may be careful to employ fail safes to misunderstanding, such as last minute change-orders, it is not always clear (looking back over weeks or months) why the whole process seems to be taking longer than predicted and has run into delays that seem unreasonable. Who likes to believe their decisionmaking was not efficient?
Sometimes the path of procrastination is defended with the rationale of caution. Caution is good as long as it is not simply the excuse for not making timely decisions in matters on which many other actions depend!
When your Interior Design team initially “pencils out” their projections for your project timeline, they build in reasonable time flexibility for certain major choice and decision junctures. Based on their experience, they know where pause, caution or full stop might occasionally occur. Those aspects have nothing to do with habitual procrastination — the pattern that ripples in every direction and affects everything that is in motion!
When too many choices — or too much “help” from the sidelines — get you stuck, ask for help. Your professional Interior Designer can help you develop better decision-making patterns that will keep your project lean and mean and financially to the conservative edge.
Robert Boccabella,
B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@ earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@ BusinessDesignServices. com or visit www. BusinessDesignServices. com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.