Sharpen Your Axe

​Abraham Lincoln is often credited with having said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Creating an efficient and productive process requires an upfront investment of time. Exactly how much time depends on the complexity of the process you want to streamline. A lot of people choose to forego that initial planning however, thinking it will be quicker to just get by with whatever seems easiest at the time. That may not sound like a big deal, but those small inefficiencies build up and can cause major problems down the road.
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Think about where you feel stressed or disorganized in your work (or in your life in general). That friction is probably indicative of an inefficient process. Take a little time out this weekend to streamline it or work on finding a better solution. You will be glad you did!