"Fires everywhere" is an excuse that you can hear in 99% of offices around this planet. And it's simply not true. 99% of people don't have "more fires than most

"Fires everywhere" is an excuse that you can hear in 99% of offices around this planet. And it's simply not true. 99% of people don't have "more fires than most people" by definition. That's how it becomes 99 out of hundred. The only thing one needs to change is this: Don't cover the fire, extinguish it. That means the first fire you handle you stick to. Don't let a second fire take away your attention from the first. Then find the source (e.g. by asking yourself and colleagues "five times why"). Then find a reliable, resilient solution for that cause. Then repeat until the fire is extinguished. Only then take on a second fire. If you start doing that, well, of course the first few fires will take you a lot more time than any fire took before. But that's the way to reduce the amount of fires. And the great thing about it: If you work like that it doesn't matter if you extinguish a fire in two hours or in eight hours. Since extinguishing a fire has an iterative payout over the next few dozen years, a small delay of even a few months doesn't harm you in the long run. The only exception to this rule is paying your bills. If you really, really need to fake a fireless environment in the next two hours to continue surviving (e.g. as a company), then go ahead and cover all of them. But that happens very rarely. Most fires only seem urgent because urgency lets us feel important. And immediately after the urgency you can continue with the actual process of extinguishing fires.