A leaking tap does not wake you up. That is the entire reason it can leak for two years. 💧
Every one of these is a drop. None of them will ruin your Tuesday. All of them together are the reason you finish a week feeling like you worked much harder than the output suggests.
None of these ruin a single day. That is precisely how they survive long enough to cost you a week.
One: you export something to get it somewhere else 📤
Anywhere you download from one place to upload to another, you are personally being the connection between two systems. That is a job. You were not hired for it and you are not paid for it.
It is also the single most automatable thing in most setups, which is why I look for it first.
Two: you have a file with v2 or FINAL in the name
Not a crime. But it means the real version lives in your memory rather than in the system, and memory is the least reliable storage you own.
The cost is not the confusion. It is the two seconds of doubt every time you open one, multiplied by everybody else who also has to guess.
Three: somebody has to ask you where something is
If you are the search function, that is a leak with your name on it. Every one of those interruptions costs you the thing you were doing and about ten minutes of getting back into it.
And it never appears anywhere. There is no report that says CO answered nine location questions this week. 💅🏾
Four: you do a thing every week that has no deadline attached
The weekly tidy. The report nobody asked for but everybody expects. The reconciliation you do because you do not fully trust the number.
That last one is the most telling. Work you do because you do not trust a system is the system charging you rent in labour.
Work you do because you do not trust a number is not diligence. It is the system charging you rent, in labour.
Five: you know a workaround by heart
You have to click the thing twice. You have to open it in a different browser. You do not save it on a Friday because of that issue.
Everybody has these and everybody has stopped seeing them, which is why I ask outright. The tell is that you can recite it perfectly. Anything you can recite, you have done enough times to have paid for it several times over.
The takeaway
Do not go looking for all five today. Pick the one that made you wince as you read it — there is usually exactly one.
This week, just time it once. Not fix it. Time it. Then multiply by fifty-two and decide for yourself whether it stays. 🤍
Want somebody to find the other four for you? Start here: Discover