Being Agile: Eleven Breakthrough Techniques to Keep You from “Waterfalling Backward”

You Need to Set Time Aside to Sharpen Your Axe

You’ve no doubt heard the story about the two lumberjacks, each given the task of chopping down a tree, and who both had rather dull axes. The first lumberjack, seeing that the time frame given to chop down his tree was short, immediately started chopping. He made some progress but, given that his axe was dull, it was slow going, even though he was working extremely hard. The other lumberjack grabbed a sharpener and spent a good portion of his allotted time sharpening his axe. The first lumberjack thought to himself, “There’s no way he’s going to cut down his tree in the timeframe given; he’s spending too much time sharpening his axe. I’m glad I got started when I did. At least I’ll be able to show ...