Make More Mistakes

First, can I say ”Great post” — I’m really very impressed by your ability to express your point so well.

I have had to deal with this problem too. Many years ago, as I was starting out as a programmer, I would either take on too many projects and be unable to complete any of them to any degree of quality, or I would continually think of improvements to the projects I did have, so causing those to overrun.

In honesty, the only cure for this is the ten years I spent after that point realizing that ”knowing when to finish” is the key.

I’m really not convinced that this is something that can be explained, I think it must be *experienced*, in order to have the proper impact.

In my case now, I am continually making to-do lists and plans in order to be able to see when I am finished; and that in turn helps me to stop adding things to the list in general.

I think that your new ideas site is a great idea; knowing how you work, I think that will be hugely beneficial to you.

Thanks for your comments, Ian. In the past, I’ve tried to work out ‘when I’m finished’ with little success, as my brain is not naturally engineered towards stopping before things are perfect (which is obviously never, hence the problem!). Will try harder, as I think this is an invaluable skill.

There are definitely numerous ways of thinking about the time management issue. I’ve just been Googling and Jeremy Wright has a fascinating article at A List Apart in which he talks about The Pickle Jar theory.

In essence, tasks vary in nature from the ‘big rocks’ (high priority due to importance and/or urgency) to the ’sand’ and ‘water’ (fiddly tasks that take up loads of time here and there, aren’t very high priority, but still need doing).

He suggests focusing on the big rocks and only including tasks like checking email under high level headings like client correspondence.

I’ll definitely be trying this - my daily to do lists are starting to fill A4 pages, which is a bit ridiculous!

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pickle/

…and another thing.

I almost forgot the 80:20 rule. In the past, I’ve seen this explained as the effort to get something perfect is 80% of the total effort, for 20% of the results. Hmm, that wasn’t very clear, maybe I should do a diagram.

Here’s a more relevant variant:

“Typically 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results. The remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort.”

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_00.htm

[…] I think this goes back to something I alluded to in an earlier post of mine - spreading myself too thinly -� prioritising is key.� It’s far more important to get a rough and ready first version out asap, than to keep trying to make it perfect (which, let’s face it, is a hopeless task). […]

1. I like the idea of “Make More Mistakes” … if you don’t make mistakes it means you aren’t pressing the boundaries. You aren’t learning. You aren’t going beyond what other people are doing. You aren’t understanding yourself. So bravo, make more mistakes indeed!

2. I am constantly working on 5-6 things at once. I do finish them, eventually. But, I believe focus is important. You have to focus to succeed.

John, thanks for your comments.

Yes, innovation only comes when one is willing to get things wrong. I’ve seen a couple of excellent articles about this, which I’m popularising, but no full resource dedicated to that mindset (hence this blog).

Focus is definitely something I need to work at harder. I am getting better at it, which is the main thing I suppose. I’m always encouraged to hear that other people are successfully busy & focused simultaneously. It’s difficult to get the balance right , but if others can do it, so can I!

Congratulations on achieving this yourself; no mean feat.

Incidentally, apologies for taking so long to respond - I loved an article you wrote about repuation management and wanted to blog about it around the same time as I commented so I could let you know about both events simultaneously.

I’ve finally published it:

Overlooking old journal entries & websites

[…] On the other hand, it’s all to easy to spread oneself too thinly, which is what I’m doing (still!) by starting my own business, studying full time and working part time. Hmm, time to employ those time management strategies, methinks… […]