Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today!

For years I’ve been around many people who are suffering from a “bad case of poor data” and I often get to speak to those souls who have lost the love for their data; for whom the spark has died and their relationship with it has become a festering sore that just won’t go away.

But before they’ve rushed off to get the offending mess permanently removed, I’ve been able to counsel them to step away for a while, to take a fresh view of what they have and ask themselves if there is anything they can do to breathe new life into their data romance.

Without fail, the one thing I see all the time is people doing nothing because they can’t see beyond this “Huge Issue”. You’ll notice I’ve used the singular term here – issue.

And this is where procrastination has played its insidious part.

A CRM that isn’t working and data that doesn’t deliver is never because of one “Huge Issue.” It will be due to a multitude of small problems that have infected the CRM and the data over a long period, often even years. And like eating an elephant, the task of fixing your data seems insurmountable when you are faced with it all in one sitting.

And anything that reeks of insurmountable immediately triggers the procrastination gene in all of us, rendering us incapable of doing anything, because - you know - where do we start?

This is where I offer the advice to refocus and look instead at the “Huge Issue” as a group of smaller individual problems because then you can start to see how to tackle them one at a time. You’ll notice I’ve also downgraded from issue to problem – psychologically problems are so much easier to handle.

I mean look here, there’s a little thing hanging around at the edge that would only take you a couple of hours to fix. How good do you feel, now that you’ve done it?

Yeah, that’s right, take that you stupid procrastination!

If it helps to get things moving, employ a simple system. Do you have a whiteboard and some post-it notes (or an electronic version of the same)? For a period of three months, each time someone spots something nasty [in the data…this isn’t an invitation to call out your colleagues for wearing PJs on team Zooms], write it on a post-it and put it on the board. Don’t overthink it – just make sure you make a note of it and don’t leave it to memory because you’ll forget.? At the end of the time get everyone together, with the post-it’s, and organise them into a proper to do list. Use a simple urgent/important matrix for priorities.

And once you have your list, pick off one or two things that are easy to do to help break through the procrastination barriers.? You’ll often find that once you start, it will make it so much easier.? And once you’ve ticked a few things off your list, you’ll find that you might have rekindled the love for your data.

There are so many benefits for doing this. First, you’re going to be tackling the data issues that are stopping you being the best fundraisers that you know you can be. And even if you don’t have the resource or the skill in house to tackle the problems, at least you’re now able to properly define them. But you’ve also got everyone working on this. Sanjay from Supporter Care is now talking to Isla in Individual Giving about why something doesn’t work and how it could be fixed, and Chris from Community is working with Eoife who manages Events because they think it would work well if their data was consistent because they’ve spotted some great cross-selling opportunities.

What’s not to love about this. Procrastination is dealt with, people are collaborating, your data is getting better and more useful and your fundraising efforts are excelling! And whilst we’re not all skipping together through fields of daisies into a beautiful sunset, things don’t seem quite so bad now, do they?

I’m probably not the right person to call if you want anything ironed, but if you need someone to ask stupid questions, help organise your post-it collage or support you in drinking tea, then I’m your person.