[colechristensen]

Often very useful things are never the "next most important" if you don't scope "importance" very carefully.

"Slow down to speed up" can capture it, setting aside times for those non-critical maintenance steps that prevent problems or make everything just a little bit faster can make worlds of difference in your work, but never seem to be able to compete with the "next most important" thing on the list.

[crooked-v]

That reminds me of the military saying "slow is smooth, smooth is fast".

[nasretdinov]

I like that analogy a lot! I've just realised that the same thing applies to racing, for example. The way I tend to play racing simulators is that I try to go full throttle all the time, and then when I stumble upon sharp turns, I just crash into them, losing much more time than I would if I didn't try to go as fast as I can all the time.

[colechristensen]

This is actually a thing in real racing, the fastest times through complex curves look slow.