I had a manager several years ago that freely gave me much needed advice.  He told me stories about people he knew, family members, even fellow co-workers.  Each story had a purpose.  It was to teach a lesson or share a bit of knowledge.

Now that I’m in a management position, I find myself constantly going back to certain nuggets he would impart.  One such gem is “Slow plus sure equals fast.”  Simple, precise, easy to remember.  I find myself saying that phrase to myself at least once a week, if not several times a week.

One such time was during a server restore.  Sometime during the day a critical database server crashed.  I was rushing around trying to hurry up and fix the server.  People were calling me and out of nowhere, the company VP walked into the server room to see if he could “lend a hand.”  I knew that meant it needed to be fixed soon and that time is now!

As soon as he left I found myself panicking.  I’m not a DBA (Database Administrator) nor do I have any clue as to the procedure of restoring this server to working condition.  Then it hit me. Slow + sure = fast.  I may not have it back up in five minutes, but by slowing down and paying attention to what I was doing, I could be more accurate.  I then remembered that we had paid DBAs on-site so I got them in there to help.

I also use this mantra all the time in dealing with ADHD.  I’ve come to realize that if I focus on one thing, I may be moving slower but at least I’m getting something done.  If I had a nickel for every time my mind started to wander and I spent the afternoon trying to do five or six things at once and actually got nothing done!  By keeping a stack of index cards with me at all times, I can write down random thoughts that pop into my head and address them later.  Oddly enough, just writing the erroneous thought down lets my mind forget about it.  ADHD 0 – Ernie 1.

Here’s a great article from Success.com that roughly relates to this.  It’s short so take a minute and read it.
http://bit.ly/oKMHat

Let me know what you think about Slow plus sure equals fast.  I’d love to hear from you with examples of accomplishments by using this, or ways to make yourself slow down.

Ernie Ayres