#0043 - Penny wise and pound foolish
One of the most idiotic ways I operate is that when I’m working on multiple threads, I postpone my work on the most important & demanding one to the last. My brain usually goes - “Hey, if I complete all of these small threads, I will feel more accomplished & relaxed to take upon the big one.”
You know what? That never happens! I end up rushing all the way till the deadline, thereby putting across shoddy work more often than you could guess. While I would’ve finished more tasks, I wouldn’t be better off.
I’m sure we’ve all come across similar cases where we are careful about the unimportant matters, and rather careless about the important ones. Maybe the following ones ring a bell?
Saving money by not going to the doctor for regular check-ups or taking the bare minimum health insurance plan, but ending up paying a large sum during an emergency
Buying the least expensive clothing and shoes, but having to replace the wardrobe frequently because of poor quality
Why do we behave this way?
Missing the forest for a few trees
Is it because we lose sight of the big picture? By concentrating on the short term / smaller outcomes (pennies), we’re forgetting about the long term (pounds.)
This is typically true when we do not have our priorities sorted as we saw in an earlier post, or the same priorities get shifted due to erroneous thinking processes like Attentional Bias.
Would love to know examples from your lives & to understand how you ruthlessly prioritize your big picture goals, so that small things don’t get in the way.
Until next week,
Kalaikovan