The blog

Do you know some­one, be it a close friend or an acquain­tance, who gives the impres­sion of being tremen­dous­ly struc­tured? The per­son always responds to your emails, fin­ish what they promised they would do with good mar­gin, seems to be on top of things and remains calm and com­posed in most situations.

Get a clue
Do you wish you were like that as well — if not entire­ly, then at least to some greater extent? There is prob­a­bly some­thing about this per­son or how they behave that you val­ue and have noticed since it dif­fers from how you do things, at least until now. Acknowl­edg­ing this is quite a gift, and dou­bly so. First of all, it high­lights an area in your way of work­ing which you wish to improve upon, and sec­ond­ly you now have a role mod­el from whom you might get a clue as to how you can refine your work methods.

Imi­tate with­out shame
Some of us were as chil­dren taught that it is not polite to imi­tate oth­ers, but in this case I think it is high­ly appropriate.

It is even flat­ter­ing for the per­son you are inspired by to be con­sid­ered a role mod­el. And if you sim­pli­fy and improve how you work, it will ben­e­fit your col­leagues, clients or any­one you have deal­ings with as well — in addi­tion to help­ing and ben­e­fit­ing you.

Do this
If you want to let your­self be active­ly inspired by some­one else in your ambi­tion to improve and devel­op, then do this:

1. Ask your­self who you con­sid­er hav­ing excel­lent struc­ture, and give your­self a few min­utes to think about it.


2. Ask your­self what attrib­ut­es or behav­iors this per­son has that you would want to have or do as well.


3. If the per­son is in close prox­im­i­ty to you, go and ask them how they man­age to do that fan­tas­tic thing you admire and lis­ten care­ful­ly to their response.


4. If the per­son is not very close to you and you do not feel entire­ly com­fort­able ask­ing them, make an edu­cat­ed guess as to what their key to suc­cess might be. You can for instance ask your­self how this per­son would have done in a giv­en sit­u­a­tion which you find trou­ble­some. If you were them, what would you then do?


5. Try to fig­ure out if there is some­thing con­crete the per­son does which you could imi­tate and do as well.
   • does the per­son have a par­tic­u­lar tool they use?
   • have they estab­lished a cer­tain habit?
   • is there some­thing spe­cial the per­son does when a tricky sit­u­a­tion arises?
   • is there some­thing spe­cial the per­son says or asks in the dia­log that makes things so much eas­i­er fur­ther into the process and collaboration?


6. Now do what you need to in order to adopt the exem­plary trait or behav­ior right away, or cre­ate a to-do-task that entails you doing what­ev­er you need to do, if you should choose to do it at a lat­er date.

A gen­er­ous free ride
If you active­ly take impres­sion from peo­ple you per­ceive as some­how more accom­plished in an area you wish to improve in, you will take a smart short­cut to becom­ing bet­ter your­self. You are not left to your own abil­i­ty to think of solu­tions, but can ben­e­fit from what oth­ers have done and found to be work­ing pre­vi­ous to your cur­rent attempt at refin­ing your ways — with­out it cost­ing them any­thing. Besides, you will not only ben­e­fit your­self by improv­ing your struc­ture, but oth­ers around you will as well.

Who or what is your inspiration?
Where and in who do you find inspi­ra­tion to becom­ing more struc­tured and refin­ing your work meth­ods? Shar­ing is car­ing, so share your source of inspi­ra­tion in a com­ment and let oth­ers be inspired as well.