I have been privileged to have a couple of intense weeks working with some great people on a project. I always find I learn so much from talented individuals working under pressure. It brings out the best in able professionals.
One specific lesson this reinforced for me is not worrying about the small things and concentrating on what really matters. I stayed in a hotel where the car park was hard to find locate – and then there was a choice between an expensive one really nearby and a cheaper one some distance away with an effective but complex transport connection. I got annoyed with the hotel because they did not explain all of this – I sort of found out by trial and error.
So I tried the further one – then it got really cold snowed and I kept getting back really late, so I caved in and went to the more expensive option. At dinner I regaled a senior colleague with my story - he said he did not even think about it. The work came first. A few extra pounds to save time and stress when we had plenty of that was not worth it – just pay the money, or have your employer or client pay.
It’s like insisting on economy travel for business executives to Singapore or Los Angeles and expecting them to go straight into a vital meeting. It’s being penny wise to be pound foolish. This phrase amazingly first appeared in the Spectator in 1712 in a completely different context.
I think a woman who will give up herself to a man in marriage, where there is the least room for such an apprehension, and trust her person to one whom she will not rely on for the common necessities of life, may very properly be accused (in the phrase of a homely proverb) of being “penny wise and pound foolish.
Clearly not very politically correct now but the origin of the phrase now more aptly summarised as making decisions with small amounts of money (pennies) that end up making bad sense for affecting larger amounts of money (pounds, as in Great British Pounds).
It is as Parkinson’s famous law says Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to take up the time available to finish it. So I you let the trivia rule your day you will be working until midnight.
Here’s a Harvard Business Review article on knowledge workers Make Time for the Work that Matters which states We’ve spent the past three years studying how knowledge workers can become more productive and found that the answer is simple: Eliminate or delegate unimportant tasks and replace them with value-added ones.
So worrying about trivia or car parks or having to fly coach when you have more critical work to do or prepare or rest up for is really a zero sum game - a situation in game theory in which one person's gain is equivalent to another's loss, so the net change in wealth or benefit is zero.
As Thomas Jefferson said In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
One specific lesson this reinforced for me is not worrying about the small things and concentrating on what really matters. I stayed in a hotel where the car park was hard to find locate – and then there was a choice between an expensive one really nearby and a cheaper one some distance away with an effective but complex transport connection. I got annoyed with the hotel because they did not explain all of this – I sort of found out by trial and error.
So I tried the further one – then it got really cold snowed and I kept getting back really late, so I caved in and went to the more expensive option. At dinner I regaled a senior colleague with my story - he said he did not even think about it. The work came first. A few extra pounds to save time and stress when we had plenty of that was not worth it – just pay the money, or have your employer or client pay.
It’s like insisting on economy travel for business executives to Singapore or Los Angeles and expecting them to go straight into a vital meeting. It’s being penny wise to be pound foolish. This phrase amazingly first appeared in the Spectator in 1712 in a completely different context.
I think a woman who will give up herself to a man in marriage, where there is the least room for such an apprehension, and trust her person to one whom she will not rely on for the common necessities of life, may very properly be accused (in the phrase of a homely proverb) of being “penny wise and pound foolish.
Clearly not very politically correct now but the origin of the phrase now more aptly summarised as making decisions with small amounts of money (pennies) that end up making bad sense for affecting larger amounts of money (pounds, as in Great British Pounds).
It is as Parkinson’s famous law says Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to take up the time available to finish it. So I you let the trivia rule your day you will be working until midnight.
Here’s a Harvard Business Review article on knowledge workers Make Time for the Work that Matters which states We’ve spent the past three years studying how knowledge workers can become more productive and found that the answer is simple: Eliminate or delegate unimportant tasks and replace them with value-added ones.
So worrying about trivia or car parks or having to fly coach when you have more critical work to do or prepare or rest up for is really a zero sum game - a situation in game theory in which one person's gain is equivalent to another's loss, so the net change in wealth or benefit is zero.
As Thomas Jefferson said In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
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