The Man Who Didn’t Wash His Dishes by Phyllis Krasilosky is an old kids story where a man decides one day, tired after a big meal, to put off doing the dishes. The next day, the same thing happened, and the next, and the next, until there are no dishes left! You can find the whole story on YouTube, but the moral of the story is, never put off to tomorrow what you can do today!
Never leave for tomorrow what you can do today!
How often do we find ourselves, like the old man in the story, falling into the same trap with how we lead?
We take a shortcut here, leave an unfinished bit there, underperforming there.
Whether it’s building a team or building a product, this is a recipe for disaster as the man in our story found out when his whole house was filled with dirty dishes, so many that he couldn’t even find the sink!
The next time you find you’re faced with the decision about whether to do a bit of difficult work for your team or your product, pause and ask yourself, “Are you putting off for tomorrow what you can do today?”
Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash
