Bolt IX: Sweat the Details
Commentary
Finishing is important. Perfect is the enemy of done. Being thorough allows you to navigate the space between perfection and completion.
We must be very careful: Details are indistinguishable from distractions.
What looks like a "Detail to Sweat" might actually be:
- rearranging deck chairs (unimportant or unrelated minutia)
- painting a bike shed (blocking tasks that could be done later)
- shaving a yak (time-consuming work tangentially related to the goal)
A good heuristic is: if the detail is unrelated to the overall goal, limit it to less than 10 minutes. If it is related to the overall goal, consider if it could be done after more important work (if so, do it later). These details are often relevant and useful work, but not important for your current task. Write it down, and move on.
If you don't know whether or not what you are doing is Sweating the Details or a Distraction... knoll your workspace and/or take a break. The unconscious mind is often the best tool to disambiguate details from distractions.
On the other hand... It's the little details that separate good work from a masterpiece. You should always sweat the details.
"Doing things fun is good, doing things great is more fun." Owner of the best ramen shop in Tokyo