Work Half Done is Worse than Work Undone
“Work half done is worse than work undone.”
My mother used to tell me this when I was a boy, and I had no idea what she was talking about. But now I do.
So what’s wrong with work half done?
Work half done takes up physical space. Think about the old wooden rowboat you brought into the garage for repainting. You’ve got it on blocks and you’ve sanded it (mostly) clean, but until you finish painting it, you can forget about using your garage (or the boat). So maybe it’s not so bad with office work. But it’s hard to work on one project while the paperwork for a half-complete other project is taking up two-thirds of your desktop.
Work half done takes up mental space. It’s hard to devote your full attention to your current task if your mind is part-occupied with finishing the staff evaluation you started this morning.
Work half done is energy invested without any payoff. We put out effort but get no results (which are presumably what we’re hoping to attain). In addition, we get no attaboys, no emotional satisfaction with “a job well done”, and no resolution on issues or questions we’re trying to resolve. Without results or other payoffs, we’re deficit spending — times two.
Watch out for the incompletes. They’re like purchases left on a credit card with a high interest rate: not good to accumulate by habit.
