A few weeks ago, I explored recoverable and irrecoverable decisions. It resonated with the Hacker News community, and the discussion was very thought provoking.

Recoverable is more useful than reversible precisely because many events aren’t reversible. You only get one chance to make a good first impression; that irreversibility is what makes putting off showing up so appealing.

If you don’t show up, then you can’t make a bad first impression which you can’t reverse. If you don’t publish an article, then you can’t have wasted your time working on an idea that nobody wants. If you don’t launch a product, then you can’t feel disappointed that your business isn’t feasible. If you don’t invest in a company, then you can’t lose money. The list goes on, you get the idea.

If you show up, you might make a bad first impression; however, you can eventually recover from it. More importantly, you might make a great first impression, and that would be amazing. Showing up makes you luckier.

I liked Nevermark’s post elaborating on the differences between reversability and recoverability:

You cannot (typically) reverse a poorly-reasoned midlife-crisis divorce. But you can recover by getting one’s life in order.

You cannot (typically) reverse a disastrous corporate merger. But you can recover, by identifying a better path forward.

You cannot (typically) reverse a money transfer after buying into a scam. But you can recover, by continuing to earn and save.

dnw linked to this post by James Clear, in which he sees decisions as hats, haircuts, or tattoos. Many decisions look like tattoos; but the question is, can you shape it in a way that makes it more like a haircut, or even a hat? 

In writing, you could aim to write a book—come up with one book idea, commit to it, become known for it for the rest of your career—and run the risk that nobody else wants to read it. (Some people can recover from that, but not most I would guess!) Or, you could aim to write a blog post every day, investing just enough time and energy into each one, and shrug your shoulders if it didn’t resonate with other readers. At least you enjoyed writing it; that made it worth your time and energy.

Steve Blank also commented on the post, linking to a quote from one of his books, “My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left the meeting or the office. In a startup, it doesn’t matter if you’re 100 percent right 100 percent of the time. What matters is having forward momentum and a tight fact-based data/metrics feedback loop to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.” This resonated with me a lot.

Subsequently, the post also got picked up and translated to Japanese by Gigazine.