Do It Right The Second Time

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how I approach new problems/domains. I tend to prematurely perfect steps that I’ve never performed. Lately, I’ve been trying to reset my expectations when approaching a new problem or learning a new skill. Assume I’ll have to do it twice. Certainly, for some decisions/operations this is horrible advice, like getting married or buying a house. But when learning a new skill or when performing a task that can be easily reversed (or easily mocked up/tested) the old adage of “do it right the first time” falls flat for me. It’s better to just assume you’ll do it twice.

“Do it right the first time” assumes that you know what “right” is. Don’t turn off your critical thinking and waste time always redoing simple tasks, but also don’t waste brain cycles trying to plan out steps you could just do and easily reverse. Match the level of forethought to the level of effort you might save. Whether that looks like rapidly prototyping, setting up a test environment, dry fitting your parts, etc. There is a distinct advantage and wisdom that doing gives, which forethought alone cannot. I admit that maybe I’m just not good at forethought and predicting what will happen. And when your first attempt bombs, “take a breath and try again”. Although this time, maybe try a different way.