One of my favorite quotes is “It’s difficult to think tactically and strategically at the same time”.  Who said it?  I don’t know, but I wish it weren’t true.

How often do you find yourself mired in a sea of numbers and ideas debating what to do tactically while pushing the long term strategic reason or “Big Picture” to the back burner and losing focus?  It’s very easy to do.  Hence the quote.

My son and I were making Duncan Hines brownies with the some sort of caramel swirl and nuts on top for a family function.  We jumped right in and started prepping the bowls, spoons, oven, counter space, pans and everything we thought we needed.  We had a deadline and were worried they wouldn’t be ready in time.  We pulled the pouches of ingredients out of the box and placed them on the counters with everything else.  Our stuff was everywhere.

Then, we stood there frozen with a vast array of brownie making materials everywhere.  We were a bit overwhelmed.  What were we doing again?

“We need the box Dad,” said my son.

The box.  The picture on the box is why we bought the brownies in the first place.  The back and sides of the box contained all the tactical information we needed to bring the image of the brownies on the front to life.  Both Duncan Hines and my son and I started with the big picture of the brownies.  That’s what they wanted to sell us and that’s what we wanted to buy…the big picture.

Every project should start with a big pretty picture for the front of your box in order to stay focused as you assemble the resources necessary to bring the picture to life.  Please don’t discard or set your box aside while you are assembling the ingredients.  You need to look at it frequently and show it to others.

By the way, the brownies did not look exactly like the picture.  But they were very good and no one knew except my son and I.