Doing enough is enough
Optimism is sometimes the enemy of slow, careful work. For example, when it leads to me adding too many items to the day's plan, only to feel frustrated later.
Eventually, reality strikes: the database doesn't behave the way it should, someone made a change that breakes this other code and, well... thing's are rarely perfect.
The tasks are still there, unchecked boxes preceding them, reminding me that I still have lots to do for the day.
The result of my excessive optimism can be a day that's too long, or boxes that are left unchecked —which I don't find satisfying at all.
On yesterday's post about careful work I was reflecting about how trying to be fast ended up costing me a good chunk of the day. I'm thinking now that the problem may have started earlier: when I chose the tasks for the day, and drew too many boxes to check.
It's way more satisfying to expect to do one thing and end up doing three, than to expect to do three and end up doing less.
A bit of morning pessimism may be in order.
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