I used to work at a deli in New York¹, where we were incredibly busy during lunch on weekdays. There were multiple law firms and offices that would place their full-staff lunch order with us, as well as folks who would walk in and place orders.

By the time I started working there, Mr. Rizzi — the owner — had been in business for many years and understood how the lunch rush worked. So he had a plan in place to handle the madness.

He would make the sandwiches with my friend Amy. I would take the orders, and our cook, Bert, would handle all hot orders.

It was chaotic, but we had a plan in place, so it was controlled.

I thought about this thanks to my friend Dylan. He recently sent out an email talking about how thoughtlessly doing stuff — in his case, marketing — doesn’t work.

Imagine if we just thoughtlessly did stuff in the deli during lunch?

• Maybe we all tried to take orders. Who would make them?
• Maybe we all wanted to make the sandwiches. But with no one taking the orders, we’d have nothing to make.
• Maybe we’d all just do what we wanted, getting in each other’s ways, and making mistakes.

It wouldn’t work.

But what Dylan said later in his email really struck me:

Yes, we can all prompt stuff into existence now with AI tools in seconds. That’s amazing – embrace it – but it doesn’t change the fundamental principle

It’s true. We can basically prompt whatever we want into existence now with little thought. I heard someone say that whenever he needs a software tool now, he just has AI code it for him real quick.

And that’s powerful. But power without thought is recklessness.

Our first step should not always be to just do something. When we’re doing something important, we need to put some thought into our approach.

When sports teams need to make a big play, they don’t just go out there and “see what happens.”

They call a time out to give themselves an opportunity to think things through.

The reason Leeroy Jenkins became infamous is not because he just ran in and won. It’s because he ignored the strategy and got himself and his clan absolutely slaughtered.

What are the stakes for you?

Are you building something that matters? Writing something that matters? Creating a tool that will truly help you?

Spend some time and put some thought into it. Create a strategy around it. If you don’t, you’re wasting your time. Creating more noise than signal. Adding to your technical debt.

When we have the right tools, we gain time and space — we should use it to create something truly good. Something that has thought behind it.

After all, is the box really worth checking if you don’t do it well?

1. Yes I am a New York Italian stereotype. ↩