sweat the details

i used to tell myself i didn't sweat the details, that i was a big picture person. but imo that was a limiting belief.

first of all, a lot of details are important and ignoring them just leads to subpar outcomes. at work, the details help me do my job well - the details of an engineering estimate (oh that line item can be cut), the details of a data dashboard (oh that metric as defined doesn't get at what we care about), the copy in a design (oh that's confusing and might lead to support questions). for goals in my personal life, this applies too. if you're trying to lose weight, and it's not working, it might be because of not sweating the details - not weighing the fats you use, or not tracking your calories on weekends.

in practice, you have to keep the big picture and details in mind. oftentimes, they are crazy connected. the best executives i've observed are able to do this.

also, sometimes the details are important in aggregate. Apple products have a crazy attention to detail. one design nit might not do the product in. but in aggregate the details come together to make the product pop

overall, as a craftsperson you just gotta care about the details. another part of this is that your work is your rep and ppl judge by the details

there might be some details that truly don't matter, but i want to think critically and then decide they don't matter, instead of blanket believing details don't matter