The change you keep not getting to

Urgent work always wins unless you give the important work a time slot.

Hi y’all,

Every event business has a problem that has to be solved today. A driver called out ninety minutes before load-in. It started raining on an outdoor setup. Those things are part of the job.

But behind those problems sits a second kind of problem, and it never comes with a due date. How quotes get built. The damage policy you’ve never actually written down. Nobody calls you about that one, so it waits.

After nearly seven years at Goodshuffle, that’s where I see most change quietly die. Not because owners can’t name what needs fixing, but because the urgent thing keeps winning.

Watch my video on the two kinds of problems every owner juggles:

It comes down to:

Know which problem you’re solving. When bookings go quiet, you’re on the phone that afternoon. Good. The bigger question, how you get more out of the hours you have, doesn’t get solved in the same motion. It needs its own slot on a list that’s actually realistic, not the leftovers.

Go gradual on purpose. You won’t get there overnight, and trying to is how people quit in week two. Paul Hines runs 1,100 events a year and got there by starting imperfectly and iterating. Pick the smallest version, run it a month, then widen it.

Protect the one or two things that let you show up. For me it’s sleep and my schedule. I’m not a morning person. Once I stopped forcing an early start and took a later evening, I was a much easier person to work with. It’s not less work, it’s differently shaped work. I know you can’t pour from an empty cup, and I’ve still tried anyway. So has nearly every owner I watch go into busy season trying to be all things to all people.

So which kind of problem have you been solving all week? And when does the other kind of problem get an hour?

See you next Monday,

Mallory Mullen

Goodshuffle