Accurate Precision

When in pursuit of a goal, it can be tempting to get sloppy and just settle for general ideas, for the imprecise, for close enough. Today we’re going to talk about why close enough is never enough. Let’s talk about being precise.

Why it Matters

Before we talk about where and how to being both accurate and precise, let’s talk about why you should care to begin with.

You know there are plenty of areas where incredibly precise accuracy matters. If the architect is off on a measurement by even an inch, an entire building could collapse. If an artillery crew is off by even a single degree, allied troops could get caught in the fire. Examples abound, but you get the idea.

So why should you care about being as precise as a skyscraper architect or artillery officer? Because your work, your efforts, your goals, matter. They matter, and you should take pride in them. Everything you do is a reflection of you as a person and in what you believe in. Sloppy, imprecise actions reflect similar values in a person. Garbage in, garbage out. Not only will the quality of your efforts suffer from a lack of precision, but you will also very likely have to take additional time to correct or even completely redo things that were not done accurately enough the first time. As is said in carpentry: “measure twice, cut once.”

Being Both Accurate and Precise

Accuracy and Precision have been defined as follows:

Accuracy: Accuracy refers to the closeness of a measured value to a standard or known value.

Precision: Precision refers to the closeness of two or more measurements to each other.

There are some cases where one of these will matter more than the other, or where will one will not apply at all. There are, however, very few situations in which neither will be important. I’ll give you a personal example from my own history.

When I was much younger and starting out with weight lifting, I was using an app to track my progression in 5 and sometimes 1 pound increments. I was eager to get stronger, and I was impatient with the time it took to put exactly the listed amount on the bar each time. Whenever I had a value that required me to add multiple smaller plates to the bar, I would just round up. It couldn’t be THAT much of a difference, right? I was just going to get stronger faster!

Wrong. Before I knew it, I was lifting too heavy too fast. I started failing my sets much sooner than I should have. I even injured myself at one point. All of this was caused by my unwillingness to take the time to accurately follow my progression down to the individual pound. As a result, I lost time having to de-load and recover from injuries.

Learn from my past mistake, both in your training and in other areas of your life. Take the time to pay attention to the details. Be both accurate and precise. Do it right the first time, and get on to the next thing knowing you did it all correctly the first time.

Where Precisely are You Accurate?

As always, I want to hear from all of you. Tell us about areas of your life that you hone in on the details, where you have either always been focused or have made changes to improve your precision and accuracy.