Use the minimum effective dose
There’s a concept in medicine called the minimum effective dose.
It means don’t take 800 mg of ibuprofen if 250 mg will work.
It’s the same with validating your assumptions: Do the smallest, minimum amount of work to get the insight you’re looking for.
Do the least possible work that allows you to:
Develop insights and find patterns
Present a business case for why it makes sense to continue
Have an informed conversation about whether you’re going in the right direction
For example, let’s say you had to review student projects to decide if it was worth investing in building a database. There are 500 projects to review and it takes several minutes to do each one.
Here’s how long it would take to finish: 7 minutes/entry multiplied by 500 entries divided by 60 minutes equals 58 hours.
Before you spend 58 hours (!), think about the minimum number to get what you need.
That number might be 10, 20, or 50 student projects. But you probably don’t need to do all 500.
You can apply the minimum effective dose concept to your daily work and life. Don’t use more salt on your dinner than you need. Don’t stock up on more clothes than you need. And don’t do more work than you need to get the insight you’re looking for.
Where else might you be doing more work than you really need to be doing?
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