Seize the day – use it or lose it

I’ve just read an (as usual) excellent post by Dave Trott over at CST on the perils of saving something good for just the right moment. To paraphrase: If you have a good idea, use it now not tomorrow, because now is real while tomorrow may never happen.

In other words, imagine that you have a low value project running now and the possibility of a high value project coming up some time in the near future. Imagine, also, that you have just had a spark of inspiration that could be beneficial to either project, but can only be used once. You may be tempted to wait until the high value project comes along to try to gain the best possible return from your inspirational idea. This sounds sensible, but think about it another way: what if the future project never arrives? What if the future project turns out to be low value after all? What if the future project changes slightly so that your inspirational idea no longer fits? Then you get low or zero return on your idea. There are too many unknowns about the future, while there some guarantees about the present.

The present is here and real. You know that you’ll get some guaranteed return for your idea in the current low value project. And on top of that, if you came up with an inspirational idea once, you can do it again. If your idea for the present project is rejected then you still get a chance to apply it to the next project – multiple bites of the cherry.

Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero: “Seize the day and place no trust in tomorrow”. *

Or, more simply, “Use it or lose it”.

* Thanks to one of Dave Trott’s commenters for this full quote.