Ash Maurya, writing on his blog, The Space Between:
At any given point in time,
there is usually a single constraint or bottleneck holding you back.
Identify it correctly, and you can move mountains.
Miss it, and you’ll be endlessly scaling small hills.Spend 5 mins at the start and end of every day to identify your single domino.
Sometimes, in work, we assume there’s “just no way” through our biggest constraint. So we accept it, sometimes without even realizing it, and address other constraints. But the odds are high that someone else has solved the same problem that’s blocking us the most. It’s worth the research time and/or price (e.g., if you need to buy the app/service/tool you need).
Depending on the scale you’re working on, sometimes the “tool” you need is expertise. Who’s *the* person — even if you don’t know them — who could solve your problem? What’s the downside of contacting them? Embarrassment doesn’t count.