‘The cost of not doing’ is a profound question. Yet we ask less of it. The question feels trivial. We are suppose to do things & not ask what happens if we don’t do it. But the question and the answer can make a significant impact on how we prioritize things. Both in personal and professional life.

The above point does not mean I ask that question often to myself. I don’t & end up doing so many trivial things that don’t create value. Again value is not all tangible for me. No value is only when I do things and feel later that it was an absolute waste of time. And there is so many things that make me feel wasted.

The importance of the question comes from the fact that everything seems to have same priority when in reality they don’t. Honestly, everything cannot have same priority. The question is more relevant when we know that we can never do everything that is asked of us.

We are hammered with the need and benefit of doing things that we do not take the time to analyze the cost of not doing it. We live in a world where everything we do is at the cost of something else not getting done. The question is how do we reduce the total cost we incur.

From a product feature prioritization perspective we can say that some things are compliance or legal based where the benefit can be argued but what makes them important is the cost of not doing. The cost of not doing is significant.

If we make that determination on compliance and legal items, why not on others. Yes we can differ in our understanding of ‘cost’, but there are things we can agree on. The human nature is that we can agree on ‘pain’ more, even when we cannot agree on ‘gain’.

I do so many things in my personal life where the cost of not doing is minuscule. Take this post for instance the cost of not doing this post is so less and yet what drives is a personal perspective of gain. The likes, the reach. Both boosts my ego. The cost to my ego is also minuscule in the large scheme of things. yet I do it.

Would anything happen if I don’t make this post or you don’t read it? Absolutely not. What if both of us are doing this by taking time from talking to a loved one or by not doing what is expected of us by someone near & dear.

When people ask us to do things, it is not because the ‘cost of not doing’ is high, but they want to get it off their chest and put it on our shoulder so we carry it. Our shoulders are not that strong to hold all the pain in everyone else’s chest. If we ask others what the cost of not doing is we will be amazed by their answers. Many times they would not have thought of it.

I leave you with a small thought. We all have not done everything we were asked to do in life. We never did everything we wanted to do either and yet the world spins. Life moves on. We are enough, We are complete the way we are & we don’t lose, we survive. We are ok not doing many things.

Sometimes we also win by just surrendering to our limits instead of fighting 😁