Are you preparing or procrastinating?

A method called the cost of trying helps decide how much effort to invest when facing a challenge. The cost of trying measures the preparation required to give a best effort, and tasks can be low or high in that cost. The approach becomes most useful when paired with the cost of failure and plotted to form a two-by-two matrix. The matrix maps strategies to combinations of low or high cost of trying and low or high cost of failure. Low cost of trying and low cost of failure supports repeated action until success. High cost of trying and low cost of failure supports trying early to learn quickly. The framework guides when to prepare versus when to procrastinate by clarifying the likely consequences of failure and the effort required to attempt progress.

"The cost of trying is the preparation it takes to put out a best effort. Some tasks are low cost of trying; others are high. The most powerful way to use this tool is to combine the cost of trying with the cost of failure and plot them, low or high. When you do that, you have a two-by-two matrix, and it reveals the strategy most applicable to your task."

"If you determine that the cost of putting out a best effort is low and the cost of failure is also low, then taking repeated action is your best path to achieving your goal. When I was developing the surgery, the quintessential low-cost-of trying activity was searching for medical papers on some aspect of adrenal surgery. Even if the search came up empty, the only cost was the effort it took."

"Eventually, that's how I got my first big break. After a year of looking, I found a single page from an online Georgia State lab manual explaining how to do the surgery I needed on rats. It wasn't a solution, but now I had momentum. If your task falls within quadrant 1, keep trying until you succeed."

"2. High cost of trying, low cost of failure: try early This is the "move fast and break things&quo"

Read at Fast Company