Lesson 15
Testing a Change
Tell whether a change really worked: write the number down first, wait out the delay, compare with the usual rather than the worst, and credit each flow separately.
Builds on
Write the number first
Before you change anything, write down what you expect to happen, where, and by when. “A calmer inbox” can’t be wrong, so it can’t teach you anything. “Fewer than 20 unread by Friday evening” can be checked, and if it turns out wrong, you’ve learnt something.
The prediction can be conditional: “if about 30 emails arrive a day and I deal with 30, the unread count stays flat”. That’s a sum, not a promise. Writing it down first matters because after the event almost any result can be made to look like what you expected.