Collegewise’s leadership has a saying we’ve come to rely on when we are tempted to rush forward with an idea or initiative before we’ve considered if and how our colleagues might be affected by it: you’re going to spend the time either way.
No matter how anxious for action we might be, if we try to save time by just imposing a change on people that they never saw coming, without giving them an opportunity to influence or even adjust to the impending change, we should expect that the other side of that decision will leave a lot of people uncomfortable. And the effort required to relieve that discomfort will take even more time, and be far less pleasant, than if we’d taken the time beforehand.
In scenarios like that, we’ve learned that we’re going to spend the time either way. Might as well spend it in the place that gives the people and the decision the best chance of success on the other side.
But there’s one scenario where you don’t necessarily have to spend the time either way—when you’re spending time putting off something unpleasant that needs to happen.
We’ve all done it. You have a task to do, a conversation to have, a piece of news to share that you’re just not looking forward to. So you put it off and fill the time with some combination of worry and dread. What we have to do doesn’t change. It’s looming on the horizon just waiting for us. And in the worst cases, the time allotted runs out. That’s when the gumption we were lacking is replaced by a mandatory urgency (seniors who were submitting applications at 11:59 p.m. on the last day before the deadline have some experience with this practice).
In those cases, all that worrying and dreading and avoiding is just wasted time. It doesn’t increase the chances of success on the other side. It doesn’t help us do better work. And it just makes us feel a lot worse for a lot longer than we needed to.
If an outcome can be improved with more time spent planning beforehand, spend it. But if there’s nothing to be gained by waiting, and if you’re filling that time with anxiety or other unpleasant emotions that will disappear once you’ve completed what’s in front of you, spend less time waiting and more time actually working towards “done.”
Spend the time where the time is best spent.