Month: March 2012

The conversation in our minds – ‘Hmm. What time is it? 10am. Okay. How long does it take to do it? 4 hours. Factor in lunch and let’s commit to 3pm.’

Right?

Wrong.

What we haven’t included is the following that will likely happen –

1. Microsoft Excel/PowerPoint will crash and we will lose unsaved work (No Mac user comments please.. :-))

2. We will have to run an ‘urgent’ errand thanks to an ‘urgent’ email that comes in

3. There will be a call asking us for our opinion for a crisis of some sorts

4. We’ll have to sit in for some emergency meeting

Or perhaps it’s all of the above.

Just because we don’t notice Murphy on a good day doesn’t mean he’s not there.

The right conversation would be – ‘Takes me 4 hours. Let’s double it and commit to 8 hours and if we finish in 4 hours, that’s great! We’d only have taken half the time anyway.’

Often, our eagerness to prove ourselves gets in the way of us doing it well and doing it right.

Under promise. Over deliver.

Easy to preach. Hard to do.

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PS: This one is written entirely as a reminder to myself.

PPS: Of course it’s contextual.