Do It Right First Time

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over.

John Wooden

If you’re going to do spend your time doing something, its best that you do it well and do it right. This doesn’t mean you have to be perfect right at your first attempt. It is a mentality to not cut corners under the pretext of revisiting it at some stage later. The biggest mistake you can make in your job is attempting to, “just get by”.

How is it that, time after time, people seem to believe they don’t have the time to do things right the first time, yet they will later make the time, usually at the cost of delaying a critical project, to do things over? The reality is that taking the time to do things right the first time will virtually always, in the long run, take significantly less time and result in a higher quality product than it does to do things over. By not doing things right the first time, you will not only inconvenience yourself (and look bad in the eyes of almost everyone), but you will greatly inconvenience and severely disrupt the lives of many others as well.

Everyone agrees that doing it right the first time has many benefits, still Why do people make this mistake in the first place? Clearly they don’t set out intending not to do things right. Infact when you start something new you begin with only the very best of intentions, to do your job to the best of my abilities in the very best ways possible. You will even often say to yourself, “this time I’ll do it right the first time and not get caught up in downstream problems.” What changes that idealistic desire? Pressure from a variety of sources is typically the cause. Such pressure will often cause people to take “shortcuts”, or “force” them to get “something” out quickly that can be “refined” later.

How many times we have heard basic steps like unit testing or peer review being skiped completely or cut short because of pressure to get something delivered. In such situations we try to convince ourself to fix it later. However the later never happens and we keep on building over it. While it may work in the short-term, the mindset of “just getting by” will slowly eat away at you from the inside. It will harm your future prospects for success.

We had a fundamental belief that doing it right the first time was going to be easier than having to go back and fix it. And I cannot say strongly enough that the repercussions of that attitude are staggering. I’ve seen them again and again throughout my business life. 

Steve Jobs

So what should you do to avoid making such mistakes in the future?

First, you should resolve that you will not allow yourself to do this, and then stick to this decision. It is your decision to do it right versus doing it over, and you should force yourself to always opt for doing it right

Next, take the time necessary to really think through what you are committing to, and don’t make “assumptions” that are not thoroughly thought through and reviewed. You can never be perfect, but try to be as thorough and complete as you can

While this may sound easy and straightforward, very often it is not. It may require you to admit to your boss or others that you didn’t plan properly, or that you didn’t think things through, or that you need help that you didn’t anticipate. Still, it is better to do this sooner rather than later.

Everything we do, from the “small functions” all the way up to “big complex projects”, do it well, do it right the first time and that consistency and routine will set the tone for how we manage our approach to everything else.

Conclusion

Do It Right the First Time, because uncorrected problems and patterns will continue to repeat themselves, which makes more failures inevitable and success impossible