Striving for Accuracy

Another habit of the mind is striving for accuracy.  This of course can be a double-edged sword.  The challenge is how can you pay attention to detail, check your work for accuracy, practice the adage “measure twice and cut once”, without becoming paralyzed by striving for perfection. 

It is important to keep things in perspective.  There are many things we can do to promote accuracy without going to the “dark side” and doing nothing for fear that our efforts will not be perfect.  Here are some tips that you can give to youth to promote accuracy:

1. Take time to check your work--reread the email, the paragraph, the letter, and check the math problems.
2. Try reading your answers aloud, sometimes this will slow you down enough to really listen to what you've written not what’s in your head.
3. Ask someone else to check your work while you do theirs--we tend to be more careful with other people’s efforts than our own. 
4. Learn to proofread and edit, rather than scrapping everything and starting over because your accuracy was challenged.
5. Double check your “facts”, your sources, to be sure you have captured the information correctly.
6. Remember:  everyone makes mistakes.  When you refuse to allow yourself to make a mistake, you squash all creativity. 
7. If you were to find perfection, remember that it is transitory, and in a few years, months, weeks, hours, or minutes, your perfection will be obsolete.

Check out C4K’s video, Making Mistakes Is Okay, a mini for frontline staff.

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