Two Mottos I Love
- Festina Lente (make haste slowly)
- Inspiration is perishable.
I’ve noticed time and again why speed matters in work and life.
Two initiatives at work in the last year died on the vine. Both were good ideas. But they dragged on for months as committees formed around them. (As David Ogilvy said, A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.) Priorities changed. Then there was no turning back.
I’ve had creative inspirations that I didn’t act on. When I came back to the idea it wasn’t energizing enough so I didn’t work on it. The inspiration perished like a rotten banana.
The cure I’ve found for this is scheduled sprints. Uninterrupted sprints are where I harvest the ripe interest, inspiration, or ideas. Times where there are no meetings and I can execute with speed. Most meaningful work (deep work) I get done happens on Mondays for this reason. No meetings. No one else in the office. It gives me uninterrupted time to sprint on the most important project. For side businesses/personal projects I do a Saturday & Sunday morning sprint before the family wakes up. Sometimes it’s writing, sometimes it’s working on a side-business idea. Whatever it is, the most important thing is that I’m on offense. Not fielding messages, but building something.
There is the saying “haste makes waste”. That is mindlessly rushing. Making haste slowly means you are intentionally moving the ball forward. Step by step, relentlessly.
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Hat Tip to this Ryan Holiday piece & this Shaan Puri talk for getting me chewing on this idea.
