Minimizing mistakes under pressure

While rushing to do other things recently, I sent out an email newsletter with the wrong title on it.  It was the kind of simple mistake that can make you look bad.  Someone might think: “If they can’t something as simple as an email headline right, how can we trust them on the big issues?”

As we are pressured to work with fewer resources and more stress, we’re more likely to make mistakes.  When they happen at work and are visible to others, they tend to reflect on our departments, divisions, organizations, or even fields.

Trying to stop every mistake can be time-consuming and expensive.  Here are some tips for cost-effectively minimizing mistakes under pressure:

*When reviewing statistical information, or any document with lots of facts and figures (such as a budget), do a random check on every third or fourth fact on random pages.  If you find errors this way, there’s a good chance there are more in the document.  You might be able to also find the cause of the errors (such as calculating figures from the wrong column).

*If a “fact” doesn’t sound right, flag it.  You might be surprised by your research, but more often the data will support your intuition.

*Double-check the proper names of all places and people in documents.  Readers tend to be sensitive about these errors, and critics tend to see more than just simple mistakes in them.

*To mark that a fact has been double-checked, write CQ, ZD, <>, or some combination of characters that normally do not appear together in English.  The notation indicates to the final editor that the fact has been verified.  The notations can be easily removed through find and replace features in office programs.  Even if a notation gets published, it will look like nothing more than a harmless typographical error.

*Walk away from your document for at least an hour.  Forget about it – literally, but just for that hour.  This way you can come back to it with a fresh set of eyes.  When you have worked too hard and too long on a document, you tend to see what you expect to see, rather than what is there. 

Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP