Three questions to ask before you commit to anything big

The first question is what has to be true for this to be worth doing. Say it out loud, in specifics. Half the time the answer contains an assumption nobody has checked, and checking it takes an afternoon rather than the month you were about to spend. The second is who decides when it is finished. Not who approves it — who decides. If the answer is more than one person, agree now what happens when they disagree, because they will. The third is what you will stop doing to make room. Committing to something big without answering this is not a plan, it is optimism about how many hours a week exist. None of these are clever. They are just the three I have most often skipped and most often regretted skipping.