on mistakes and how to stop making them

December 12, 2019 1:43 PM

I would like to know if the following question resonates with anyone who has made silly mistakes at work and later found out there was a specific reason they were making them. If so, what steps did you take to improve?

You are not my doctor. Nobody here is giving medical advice. I am asking this so I can figure out what professional to go too and what to tell them when I do.

I have become afraid of making mistakes at work. They put me in the unflattering light of lacking attention to detail. For years I thought I was just prone to letting my thoughts wander at inappropriate moments. No matter how hard I try to focus, though they keep on occurring. If my attention gets diverted for even second, ding! Such mistakes don't occur *too* often, just enough that it gets to be like, didn’t she hear us tell her not to do that the first time? An example is repeatedly miscounting long rows of numbers to be added together, especially if I have to do that at the end of a shift. Other mistakes occur when I am pressed to do certain tasks quickly. This includes misreading dates on important documents, because I am focused on getting the document signed; or, if I focus on the date, forgetting about the signature. I've finally realized that whatever this is, it isn’t because I don’t care or am lazy. I am slow and nervous to do any task because I have to constantly bring my attention back to what I am doing, and/or double check every single thing I do.

I need a clearer understanding of whatever my issue might be, so that I can go to a professional and explain it succinctly. Verbal speech is not my strongest form of communication. I’ve found that doctors or therapists tend to steamroll over me, or not take the time to understand what I mean, if I don’t know exactly what I am trying to tell them before I show up to their office. Based on my research, it might be inattentive ADD, slow processing speed, anxiety, learning disabilities, or any combination of any of these. The only thing I have an official diagnosis for is anxiety. I highly suspect inattentive ADD because I have never in my life been able to comfortably sit still and watch TV without something for my hands to do, like drawing or knitting.

Once again, you are not my doctor. I am hoping people will respond to this question either by relating anecdotes of similar experiences and the treatment they received or methods used to overcome this, or refer me to sources that I cannot readily find on Google, about these conditions and their possible treatments.

Thanks.

posted by Armed Only With Hubris to Work & Money (12 answers total)

I am slow and nervous to do any task because I have to constantly bring my attention back to what I am doing, and/or double check every single thing I do.

Whether or not you have a condition, if you hope to avoid the kinds of errors you're describing, you actually do have to double-check everything. Also, to the extent you have any control over it at all (I understand you may not), you need to build in time so that you're not pressed to do detail-oriented tasks quickly. It doesn't matter how smart you are, etc., it is not possible to get anywhere near error-free without constant checking and re-checking, and taking the time that requires. If your tasks are repetitive in nature, an actual checklist may be helpful, too.

(Source: being a not-naturally-detail-oriented person working in a profession where attention to detail is unfortunately the top requirement for most junior to mid-level jobs. Offices full of smart people reading documents for the sixth or seventh time, spotting new misplaced commas or errors in dates each time.)
posted by praemunire at 1:50 PM on December 12, 2019 [5 favorites]

The only two ways I know of to reduce mistakes are: 1) Allow enough time for the task that you're not rushed or panicked, and 2) be systematic about it (make a list, do things in well defined stages, check your work etc). The two go hand in hand because it's hard to be systematic about something when you don't have enough time to do so, and having a system will let you better estimate and defend how long it will take to do something.
posted by aubilenon at 1:54 PM on December 12, 2019 [3 favorites]

Everyone I know makes mistakes. Especially ones that “don’t occur *too* often”.

My point is I understand that this is frustrating but I’m also not sure that your performance is anything outside the normal range.

On the one hand you should trust your gut, but on the other hand it may be anxiety about mistakes rather than the mistakes themselves that is causing you problems.

And anxiety can cause mistakes, so they can form a vicious cycle. Here’s some pop-psych article I googled up about anxiety and fear of mistakes, you may want to check out the book mentioned there, or it may help you find terms for further research.
posted by SaltySalticid at 1:58 PM on December 12, 2019

I was in a job like this, where my direct supervisor constantly pulled me up on errors I'd made, showed me where my work was incorrect or somehow deficient, and gave me highly personalised lectures—about my care and ability to concentrate—about my performance. When I realised that it was a deliberate strategy to keep her employees off-balance by giving them ambiguous and insufficient instructions (that would always be interpreted wrongly), and encouraging 'mistakes' by having everyone always second-guessing themselves, I packed my things in a box, left, and got a better job. I now have no problems with making errors.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:00 PM on December 12, 2019 [6 favorites]

I think you might find it really interesting (I mean, it's just generally interesting) to read Atul Gawande's book The Checklist Manifesto (except from The New Yorker), where he digs into the science behind the brain and memory and repetitive tasks and multi-task projects and why error rates plummet when people use checklists. This might also give you some ideas about how to get additional help, if the book itself doesn't give you some good ways to improve your situation yourself.

A lot of people erroneously pride themselves on doing things by memory, when memory is an extremely strange application that does not work in logical ways (I mean, we might understand the logic one day of why it works the way it does, but we don't know now). Memory is garbage. Reproducible systems of management that are meant to prevent mistakes are wonderful.

I have come through a long career in which nobody ever wanted to sit down and plot out the exact way to do the work, until the place I work now where we start every project from a project task template with hundreds of task lines because all that shit needs to get done! We craft extensive testing and go-live plans from constantly-evolving templates. We don't leave anything to garbage memory, and our work is much better.

Get a device that will assist you in counting rows, whether that's just a mechanical click-counter or a spreadsheet on a tablet. Make a list of everything that needs to be completed on a document - date AND signature - and check off the steps every time you need to do them. Make your life easier! When you make a mistake, do the post mortem, ask yourself: how do I avoid making that mistake in the future? Then do whatever the answer is in the future so you don't make the mistake.

And if you are organizing yourself this way and things are still going wrong, that's likely that you are stuck in a larger disorganized system beyond your own realm of control.

But really: buy a notebook at the drugstore or open a Word document and start making lists of steps to work from.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:10 PM on December 12, 2019 [11 favorites]

Here's one thing I learned in my professional career... when you make a mistake, in addition to fixing it (as part of your job), you also need to put a system in place to prevent it going forward and communicate that to your boss.
Not everyone's strength is x,y,z... instead of getting upset and insecure about making a mistake make it as avoidable as possible.
As for what to discuss with your therapist, yes it's always nice to put a name on what problem you thing you have, but I think what you're needing is someone to help you navigate past this mental discomfort or suggest ways to make mistakes less. That's their job - give you the mental tools to get by.
posted by hillabeans at 2:24 PM on December 12, 2019 [3 favorites]

An example is repeatedly miscounting long rows of numbers to be added together, especially if I have to do that at the end of a shift.
That is something most people can't even do in their head, so I hope you can find a way around this. Like, can you write subtotals down as you go or use a calculator? Tiredness really zaps my ability to add in my head. Basically the occasional error doing this is normal.
For the steamrolling, try writing down examples of times you experience a symptom that negatively affects your ability to: do your job, finish chores or errands, or enjoy your life. Then you can list all of them when at the appointment or even ask them to read the list without you having to speak it out loud.
posted by soelo at 2:44 PM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

I am a new medical resident and make a ton of mistakes per week. I have a Notepad document with a list of them all--I write it down as soon as it happens and just leave the doc open. Sometimes I make a post-it note with a special symbol on it to remind me not to do an especially egregious one. (A special symbol so that my colleagues don't know what it means.) Good luck!
posted by 8603 at 3:13 PM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

For me, I have a note to myself:
is this a task that needs attention to detail? What details?

I have become aware when there are specific details that are important (the address in a package is correct, I am using the correct name, I have the correct numbers, or the formula I am using is the right formula). I make a list of this things and check that list once more before I submit the work.

I might have a colleague or friend double-check for me
posted by jander03 at 3:40 PM on December 12, 2019

I started making a lot of mistakes - not at work though - forgetting things (I literally would walk into a room and not be able to remember why I was there), getting very tired and getting very depressed. It wasn’t like me and it was getting worse and worse to the point of being dangerous. I went to the doctor and they ran some tests and found out I was severely anaemic. I got an iron infusion and it was nothing short of a miracle. Wouldn’t hurt to run some tests...
posted by Jubey at 8:12 PM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

The people above have good advice. To me, a layman, it sounds less like a medical condition and more like a common situation when working with a lot of details without a sufficient framework, so below I've addressed that; please ignore if irrelevant.
At my former workplace, where there were infinite opportunities for tiny errors and the goal was to avoid ALL of them, this was mostly handled with checklists and mechanical checks. If you're creating a document, you make yourself a little checklist with "date checked" "signature gotten" and whatever else has to be done for it, and you make it part of your normal workflow to go through the checklist before you submit the document. With number/calculation issues, I don't know what your process is so this may be off base, but for instance you could make a rule for yourself that the calculation is always done twice, in two different ways: by hand and with a calculator, with a calculator and in Excel, etc etc whatever works. If you are told "you got X detail wrong, be careful next time," make a note on the spot (on Post-Its or whatever), and then use your notes to make yourself a list of "details to watch out for," which you can then distill into checklists, best practices, etc.
It does take more time at first but saves time thereafter, honestly. (Also, no amount of good checking systems is going to get you or any other human being down to absolutely zero errors, ever, so don't beat yourself up too much.)
posted by huimangm at 10:13 PM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

I am a meticulous person and I do it with checklists.
I use the app Google Keep, and create the checklist by imagining walking my way chronologically through anything I’m doing. I add all items as they occur to me.

Imagining arriving at work and parking my car might remind me that before I leave the house I need to grab change for the parking meter. I add “bring parking change” to the checklist.

Imagining getting my cash float reminds me that last shift I forgot to count the float before I started. “Count float, $200” and “get float change- lots of quarters and five dollar bills” are added to the list.

Remembering I was freezing while working last night - “bring sweater”

Imagining tallying the long list of figures-maybe I decide I will double check my work by adding the numbers once from top to bottom, and then again backwards, from bottom to top. “Tally figures starting from the top” AND “Tally figures starting from
the bottom” both go on the list.

Once I’ve gone through that whole procedure (“Text Debbie that I’m leaving” “Set alarm” “Lock doors”, Etc), you have a decent checklist for your shift.

I would then think back (check your emails if need be) to add in checkboxes that safeguard against all the errors you’ve ever been called out for. “Check date on form” “get signature on form” “duplicate the form” “file duplicate copy” “cc Brian and Annie when sending to Dexter”... whatever. Every single task gets its own checkbox.

Then because google keep Is awesome, you can drag the list items around and group them: BEFORE LEAVING HOME / START OF SHIFT / END OF SHIFT whatever.

Then, during the shift, check the list before completing any task.

You can check off items and then the next day uncheck them and they’ll bounce back up into the list.

I do this FOR EVERYTHING. Today, to make sure I got Xmas dinner on the table, I had a 30-item list, randomly composed over the last couple of days as I planned the meal, and then last night I organized the untidy list items by dragging into the correct order of tasks that got all 5 of my dishes to land hot on the table at the same time. Trophy!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:25 PM on December 25, 2019 [1 favorite]