The best way
This is one of the Principles of the Slacker@Work that I mentioned here. This is the a tough one for a lot of Slackers@Work because their gut instinct is to find the easier, faster way. As in the tagline of this very site, “the path of least resistance” is what we’re looking for. That should tell you that I struggle with this principle a fair bit myself.
The way I tend to do things, if left to my own devices, is to gain basic mastery of the what-have-you and then find ways to optimize it. Streamline, combine and reduce redundancy in effort. That’s just how my brain works. The problem is that sometimes the faster/easier way just isn’t the best way.
Here’s a good example. I hike around the forest a bit. You may have noticed that some forests are located on mountains. And so the trails in the forest are often switchbacks. Switchbacks aren’t the fastest way up the mountain, and sometimes some folks try to create shortcuts between switchbacks by hiking directly through the vegetation that separates them. Easy and fast, but not the best way. Nice for the individual hiker, but not so nice for the forest, or those who care about the forest. Those shortcuts destroy the vegetation and encourage erosion of the trails that wouldn’t otherwise happen. There’s a distinct consequence to the “easier/faster” that, for most folks, is sufficient to keep them on the proper path. Same deal at work. Sometimes the best way, though more difficult or slower or less efficient, is the right way.
An easy cross-check for this is to take a step back and work through the cost/benefit of the action. Generally speaking, if we’re talking about personal productivity, there’s usually little downside to the faster/easier path. But if we’re talking about tasks that affect more than just you, then it’s definitely worth evaluating. If you’re the only one who benefits, and everyone else suffers, then that course of action isn’t the best way.
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