Beyond a certain point, “saving time” is wasting time.

I read a great little piece by Dan Quine this week, about “How Developers Think”.

One part really leapt out at me in relation to something I’ve been experiencing recently. Excerpt below but I highly recommend you read the whole thing:

Like many of you, I have become more and more interested in the little hacks and tweaks that save you time in your workflow. The logic is much as above: if you save a little time on something you do repeatedly, you reap the rewards forever more.

But it gets to a stage where downloading another app, reorganising your homescreen or notifications again isn’t adding anything to your process. You’re spending more time reading articles about “the one email trick that will save you forty minutes a day” than you’d gain by just getting on with things.

Too many of the articles on this topic play on our fear that everyone else is working like a supersoldier because they’ve found some secret workflow serum.

Again and again, I realise that it’s the skills that never change that offer real benefit. Things like:

• Understand your strengths — I get in the zone in the mornings so never book meetings there.
• Take the initiative — if you are suggesting a time for a meeting, send the bloody cal invite so the recipient can just click accept.
• JFDI — acronym. Often, complaining that you just can’t find a way to get a project started is like being a picky eater; if you were starving, you’d eat anything. Sometimes, the answer is Just Fucking Do It.