Good enough is best
I sacrificed forays into Ikea and the Container Store to come back to the hotel and talk to you all. That's dedication, people! First, you all are the greatest thing to ever happen to a bookstore! My in box was full of recommendations. The only thing that could have made it better is if you all had collaborated and sent me a single list in alphabetical order by author's last name so I didn't walk in circles so much.
In the end I picked The Secret Lives of People in Love and The Time Traveler's Wife. There were several other temptations but I only have so much room in my suitcase.
I've been on this odyssey with a co-worker to look at improving some of our processes at work. Yesterday was a long day, but today was much improved for us both. At dinner tonight, I remembered something my uncle Jack had told my father many times, that "good enough is best."
I've been spending a lot of energy lately trying to get our company from grade A to grade A+ and sometimes you just have to admit that continuing to tweak something won't necessarily help it. Good enough has never really been my style and certainly is not my father's. But I can see other people's perspectives that they may spend a lot of effort to do something right and only get frustrated when someone follows up to move things around to their preferences.
My father is famous for doing this when working on a project where he will go behind your efforts to load a truck bed and move things around in an almost identical fashion but in a way that pleases him. He'll also uncoil a power cord you've wound to wind it the way he likes when all you were trying to do was save him the time of doing it in the first place. After a while, you start to wonder why you're even bothering to help.
So I'm trying to improve some processes overall but not necessarily go behind my staff and recoil power cords they've bound up for me needlessly. Wish me luck.