I am often tempted to take shortcuts. What could possibly go wrong if I don’t wear my seat belt, it’s a short ride anyway. What could possibly happen if I delay scanning this document – I’ll get to it later.
The answer is everything. Everything can go wrong. And often, it will. When it does, it will be ten times more wasteful than all the time saved by cutting corners combined.
I learned this on my flesh. Many times. There’s a reason things should be done a certain way. It took many years of many failed attempts to find the right way to do things.
Many people died from infections before we learned to wash our food. Many documents were lost to power outages before we came up with an auto-save feature.
And yet, people cut corners. Every day. My service providers cut corners. My clients cut corners, too.
But don’t take my word for it. Just imagine your car manufacturer rushing the cars out, skipping the safety tests. Imagine your doctor reusing the gloves from their previous operation. How safe would you feel? Imagine a phone manufacturer taking out the audio jack to save pennies per sale. OK, this one’s just me venting. But imagine the architect planning your home cutting costs on smoke detectors. You get the idea.
I’m not saying I don’t understand the temptation. I do. I’m no saint. I’ve cut corners before, too. In architecture, in code, in life. That’s why I can say it with absolute conviction: don’t cut corners. It’s not worth the cost. Do things properly.
I’ll see you around the corner!
Optimising My Life 