The Value of Doing Things Properly

By Adrian Vance

Why standards matter most when nobody is watching.

There is a particular satisfaction in doing something properly.

Not perfectly. Not extravagantly. And certainly not for the benefit of an audience.

Simply properly.

It might be arriving somewhere when you said you would. Preparing for a meeting before you enter the room. Returning something in better condition than you received it.

Making coffee with enough attention to notice when it is good. Taking care of clothes rather than replacing them unnecessarily.

None of these things is especially impressive on its own.

That is partly the point.

Standards become interesting when there is no applause attached to them.

The things nobody sees

A great deal of life happens without an audience.

The early training session. The preparation before a meeting. The shirt that gets hung rather than dropped over a chair. The email reread before it is sent. The ten minutes

spent putting something back in order because tomorrow will be easier if you do.

There is little social value in any of this.

No one needs to know.

But repeated often enough, small decisions begin to shape the quality of a life.

I think this is where standards are most useful. They remove some of the negotiation from ordinary decisions.

You already know how you want to do something.

So you do it that way.

Standards are not perfection

Perfection is usually a poor standard.

It is too rigid for real life and, more importantly, often becomes an excuse not to begin.

Doing something properly is different.

Properly means giving something the degree of attention it deserves.

A five-minute task does not require an hour of obsession. A casual dinner does not require the ceremony of a state banquet. A weekend away does not need an itinerary planned to the minute.

The standard should fit the situation.

That distinction matters.

Otherwise, discipline becomes theatre and attention becomes fussiness.

There are days when training means a full session and days when it means thirty useful minutes. There are occasions that call for tailoring and others where a good knit, trousers and clean shoes are exactly right.

Consistency does not require sameness.

It requires judgement.

Preparation changes the experience

I have always preferred being prepared.

Not because everything needs controlling. Quite the opposite.

Preparation gives you more freedom when things inevitably change.

If I am travelling, I would rather know the route to the airport before I need it. If I have an important conversation, I want to understand the subject before sitting down. If I am buying something I expect to own for years, I would rather spend time understanding it than spend more money correcting the wrong decision later.

Preparation is rarely glamorous.

It is, however, remarkably effective.

You notice this most when something goes wrong.

A delayed train is easier to deal with when you left enough time. A difficult meeting is easier when you know the numbers. A wardrobe is easier to use when the things inside it were chosen to work together.

Good preparation does not guarantee a good outcome.

It simply improves your position when reality arrives.

Maintenance is part of ownership

Buying something is easy.

Living with it well is more interesting.

Shoes need looking after. A car needs servicing. Clothes need cleaning, pressing and occasionally repairing. Knives need sharpening. A coffee machine needs maintaining. A body needs training, food and recovery.

Ownership creates responsibility.

That may sound rather serious for a pair of shoes, but I think it is one of the distinctions between acquiring things and actually appreciating them.

If something is worth choosing carefully, it is probably worth looking after.

The same principle applies beyond objects.

Relationships require attention. Skills deteriorate when neglected. Physical capability disappears surprisingly quickly when you assume yesterday's work will continue doing tomorrow's job.

Maintenance is not particularly exciting.

Neither is brushing your teeth.

Some things are valuable precisely because they continue working.

Quality is often invisible

We tend to associate quality with what can be seen.

Materials. Finish. Design. Craft.

Those things matter. But some of the best forms of quality are almost invisible.

A hotel where someone has anticipated what you need without making a performance of it. A jacket that moves correctly because the pattern underneath was cut well.

Software that feels simple because someone spent an unreasonable amount of time dealing with complexity before it reached you.

The finished result can look effortless.

It usually isn't.

This has made me increasingly suspicious of things designed primarily to signal quality rather than deliver it.

Price can be visible. Branding can be visible. Exclusivity can be made extremely visible.

Quality does not always need to be.

Often, you discover it through use.

Standards should make life better

There is a danger in having standards.

You can become insufferable.

Once you know how you like something done, it becomes very easy to assume everyone else should do it the same way.

That misses the point.

Personal standards are first and foremost personal.

They should make you more dependable, not more judgemental. More capable, not more difficult. Better prepared, not incapable of improvising.

I can be impatient with inefficiency. I know this about myself.

But there is a difference between wanting things done well and expecting the world to arrange itself according to your preferences.

Good standards should create freedom.

If they make life smaller, more anxious or unnecessarily rigid, something has gone wrong.

The compounding effect

Most standards produce very little immediate reward.

One training session changes almost nothing.

One sensible purchase does not create a wardrobe.

One well-prepared meeting does not build a company.

One evening spent reading does not make you knowledgeable.

The effect appears through repetition.

This is why consistency is less exciting than transformation but considerably more useful.

The things that eventually look significant are often built from decisions too ordinary to

remember individually.

You rarely notice the exact day something changed.

You simply look back and realise that the accumulated result is different.

When nobody is watching

There are easier ways to appear disciplined than to become disciplined.

It is possible to buy the clothes associated with taste, speak the language associated with ambition and display the objects associated with success.

None of those things tells you very much.

The more revealing question is what remains when nobody is watching.

Do you still train?

Do you still prepare?

Do you still keep your word when breaking it would be convenient?

Do you still take care of things that cannot improve anyone's opinion of you?

That is where standards stop being presentation and become character.

And perhaps that is the real value of doing things properly.

Not that every detail of life needs to be optimised.

Not that mistakes should be eliminated.

Not that everything has to be perfect.

But that, over time, the way you repeatedly choose to do ordinary things becomes the

way you live.

The standard is not what you announce.

It is what remains when there is no reason to perform it.