When it comes to a product that you are spending time on, whether that be for your job, homework if you’re in school, housework, home improvements, pet projects…etc., a rushed job usually results in a poor outcome. Of course, the better you are at something or the more experience you have, the faster you can accomplish something of quality and worth. However, you and others can always tell the difference between a rushed job and a job that didn’t take much time but was built right because of experience.
The Egyptians spent 25-30 years building a single pyramid. This doesn’t mean they slacked off by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, according to most historians, they averaged about 81 blocks per day. Each of these blocks could be as large as 1.5 meters wide, 1.5 meters high, and 2.25 meters deep. To put into place 81 of these per day would be a tough job even today with all the equipment and modern technology we possess. This is an impressive display of a people coming together working efficiently on a project without rushing it. Who knows if we would even know that there were pyramids built in that era had they Egyptians made a rush job out of it.
Seth Godin wrote a post on a similar idea not too long ago entitled What does ‘pro-business’ mean?. It’s a decent sized article but if you have some time I recommend it especially for business owners.
So the next time you feel pressured by a client to do a rush job, make sure they are fully aware of the implications it may have on their project. In some cases, they may opt to have the project go over a couple days to ensure they get the product they were expecting. Think about this in terms of your own projects as well and see if it makes a difference in how you view your work. Do you feel better when you know you’ve spent some time to produce something of high quality?