The “Quick Sweep” Trap

A man’s robot vacuum was broken. Since it would take 30 minutes to fix it, he decided to do a quick five-minute manual sweep of his kitchen instead. He did this for the next three months because it was always easier to do a quick sweep. Thanks to this system of action, he spent 7.5 hours cleaning instead of the half hour it would have taken to fix the robot. 

The man is not me. My wife says we’d never get one. The story about the man is from a short video about how to create systems for the life you want to live. The “robot vacuum problem” is used to illustrate how much more effective it can be to set up a proper system upfront. 

This week, I invite you to ask: 

Where in my life might I be falling into the “quick sweep” trap, applying an easy short-term fix that leads to long-term losses? What would I do to upgrade this system? 

God bless,
Dan