Overcommitting Benefits No One
The planning fallacy describes our natural bias when forecasting our own productivity: we focus on the best-case scenario, or something dangerously close to it. Rarely does that scenario play out.
David Epstein • Why You Should Plan To Get Less Done
“Maintain a margin of safety—even when it’s going well. Rich people go bankrupt chasing even more wealth. Fit people get injured chasing personal records. Productive people become ineffective taking on too many projects. Don’t let your ambition ruin your position.”
jamesclear.com • 3-2-1: On Mentors, Margin of Safety, and How to Say No | James Clear
The optimism of planners and decision makers is not the only cause of overruns. Contractors of kitchen renovations and of weapon systems readily admit (though not to their clients) that they routinely make most of their profit on additions to the original plan. The failures of forecasting in these cases reflect the customers’ inability to imagine h
... See moreDaniel Kahneman • Thinking, Fast and Slow
Like that time you pretended you could do that thing for a client, just because you didn’t want to say no and open the door for someone else – then frantically scoured Google to find a way to learn, quickly.