The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Beginnings set a direction that everything afterwards inherits, and correcting a direction gets more expensive the further along you are. A sloppy start is not merely a slow one. It installs assumptions that stop being visible once the work is underway. The first hour of a project is worth more than any hour in the middle, though it never feels that way when you are eager to be moving.

Before the next thing you start, spend a deliberate half hour on what it is actually for and what finished would look like. That half hour tends to buy back days.