When accuracy matters (and when it doesn't)

The order you put ornaments on a Christmas tree is rarely a good predictor of how well it’s going to look once everything—lights, ornaments, tinsel—is up there on it.

And how you go about crafting a blog post (or a term paper)—whether you start with the title and work your way down, or compose sentence after sentence in un-chronological/random fashion, or write up an outline and fill in the gaps—matters very little in how it turns out.

Or consider cooking. If you’re following a recipe for say, Tournedos Rossini, and want it to turn out exactly the way JC did it, then of course following it to the letter is essential. But if you simply want a decent meal that tastes good, cooking like a chef and not a cook (i.e. throwing ingredients together and using taste as your guide) will give you favorable results 90% of the time.

Point is, if you’re engineering something—a car, a skyscraper, a rocket ship, etc.—six sigma level precision is vital. But for most things—how you plan a wedding, bake a cake, make a career, etc.—following a plan verbatim is merely an exercise in overwhelm and (probably) self-torment.

If it will likely turn out okay anyway, don’t stress over exactness. Save your reserve of focus and energy for merely doing it the best way you know how.