4

Leave stuff half-finished

My father once gave me a sage piece of advice: ‘The best is the enemy of the good.’

Although at the time I nodded to hide the fact I didn’t understand, over time, it has sunk in.

The last 20 per cent of any job is the bit that takes the greatest effort. And life is a zero-sum game; any precious hours you spend doing one task are taken from what else you could be doing.

I’m not saying you can deliver a shoddy service. If someone doesn’t see a job through, you’ll fail fast. But that doesn’t mean you have to be the one to finish it. If you spend 80 per cent of your time finishing things off, that’s a hell of a lot of doors you won’t have time to knock on.

On Belbin personality tests, one of the most rigid personality ...

Get The Devil's Advocate now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.