A Graveyard of Incomplete Execution Loops →
Cedric Chin writing on Commoncog:
it is easy to come up with plans and then start executing on them. The problem is that:
- Either you get distracted, mid-execution, by something else that’s shinier. Or you get distracted mid-execution by something that blows up (and in business there’s always something that’s blowing up).
- Or you get distracted by something else that pops up at the end of the current execution loop,
- Or you forget to do the ‘study’ bit at the end of a loop, which informs your next cycle.
It’s easy to proclaim focus, but it’s a whole other game to practice the sheer discipline of seeing things through when your big customer cancels, your head of engineering leaves, the backlog gets boring, and the next shiny idea comes knocking while you’re trying to execute a multi-month strategy.
Kudos to Cedric for addressing what many of us avoid: how deeply distractions and forgetfulness affect our work, despite it seeming unprofessional to admit.
The whole Commoncog website feels like a breath of fresh air in the world of fluffy business writing.