The Napoleon Technique: Postponing Things to Increase Productivity

This is something I've thought about a lot, and while I like the framing in the article, it's missing a few key dimensions. Optionality: In addition to "letting things resolve themselves", one benefit you can sometimes get by deferring a decision (esp a "one-way door" decision) is optionality (of learning information that might result in a better decision). Waffling: On the other hand, if you are a manager or decision-maker on whom others depend, one of the worst things you…

I think this can definitely save you time in some cases, but usually at the expense of other people. For example, if someone asks me for help on something because I'm more familiar with it, my spending five minutes to answer their question might save them an hour of troubleshooting. Here, the Napoleon technique would save me time but only by wasting the other person's time. Eventually this might come back to bite me, perhaps if that other person is…