Thoroughness is an attitude which can exponentially make a difference to our life. It differentiates between doing something and doing something well enough so that we don’t need to revisit it. We don’t realise it, but much of our challenges arise because we were not thorough the first time around, having to, later on, expend valuable time and energy to rectify our half-baked effort.

In many cases, ninety percent of the task on hand is done well. The last ten percent often requires disproportionate effort and we fail to apply ourselves. If we reflect upon it, this happens time and again and could be for a variety of reasons – we get excited about something new and leave the work on hand unfinished, we are in a hurry to rid ourselves of a responsibility we don’t particularly enjoy, we don’t realise the consequences of not tying up the loose ends or we are just complacent that when the time comes, we will attend to things that may be unfinished.

Awareness at two levels makes us thorough. The awareness of what needs to be done and secondly, the awareness with which we go about doing things.

A sense of responsibility makes us thorough. Knowing that others depend on us, we not only do our best but also ensure they never have to undo and redo things. When we hand over things to the next generation, we must be mindful we are handing over a legacy they can grow, and not the baggage of spending their life sorting out our mess.

Valuing time builds thoroughness. We feel taking shortcuts gets us ahead faster. On the contrary. These very shortcuts come back to consume our precious time and attention, slowing us down.

Patience builds thoroughness. Knowing that patient self-application is the key to our success.

We build thoroughness when we respect quality over quantity. When we are not rushing to fit in too many things in our life, rather leaving a stamp of our thoroughness in all that we do. Small things done thoroughly prepare us for managing big things with ease.

A good pilot never takes off without thoroughly checking his instruments. We too pilot our life every day. It is the attitude of thoroughness that will determine our altitude of joy.

(Picture-An old bridge in Scotland)