A common theme when approaching a problem is that you can go broad (horizontally) or deep (vertically). The relative merits of each approach are situation-dependent. There is no “right” approach, this is one of those things that you have to evaluate based on the particulars of the situation and preferences those involved.
There’s a physical metaphor I’m reaching for here that I can’t quite settle on, something about pouring a liquid into a test tube or a pan. Broad vs deep. I can’t quite articulate it. But the rate of ingress (ie work) is the same. It’s about how that is distributed.
This is the sort of thing you’d consider when you’re using Systems Thinking.
Examples
- Debt repayment
- Broad - pay all debts off roughly equally
- Deep - fully pay off the smallest debt, making minimum payments to the rest (the “snowball” method), then move to the next one
- Cleaning
- Broad - clean what’s next to you, wherever it goes, clean what’s dirty there, bounce around your house always getting the closest mess
- Deep - pick an small-ish area (eg the counter), clean ONLY that area until it is done, then pick a new area
- Skills
- Broad - the Jack-of-all trades who knows enough to be dangerous at almost everything
- Deep - the artisan who is completely untouchable at the area of their art, but otherwise not super useful
- Tool development
- Broad - Notion. A tool that doesn’t have a specific use, but is roughly equally good at things like task management and note taking, but being outmoded by dedicated tools in each area
- Deep - Todoist. A tool that is really only good as a Task Manager, and sort of sucks at note taking
- Business Organization
- Broad - each function is seen by the reps who are aligned to the products going through that function
- Deep - every product line is seen by the same reps, who are aligned to the functions they perform