When making difficult decisions, whether in software or in life, it helps to have a set of principles. In today's episode, we're going to talk about some principles that you can employ to make better decisions and make better software. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. You're listening to Developer Tea. My goal on this show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose in their careers. And I want to give you these practical tools as often as I can. The reality is that you have to adopt your own principles. And hopefully, you're using some good evidence and the principles of others to inform the ones that you feel are going to be most effective for you. But I don't want you to just take the principles of others. I want you to take this point blank. I want you to take this and run it through its paces to see if it's going to work for you. It works for me, but it doesn't mean it's going to work for everybody. With that said, let's jump into the first principle. Saying yes to the wrong thing is almost always more costly than saying no to the right thing. Let's think about that again. Okay. Saying yes to the wrong thing is more costly, is usually more costly than saying no to the right thing. Let's explore this principle a little bit deeper here. The resource that we're talking about implicitly in this principle is time. When we choose to do something, when we choose to spend our time in a particular way, we are actively. Choosing to not spend our time in a different way. This seems obvious, but this is the crux of this principle. If you choose to do the wrong thing, right? And in this case, I want to define what I mean by wrong thing and right thing, because those definitions might change the way you think about this principle. When I say wrong, in this case, I mean something that doesn't come close to the right thing. At the same time, when you choose to do the wrong thing, you may find yourself bringing presented are going to be one of many good options. And while you may have many good options, there is a whole ocean, usually, of bad options. And so choosing to say yes to one of those bad options, it takes the time that you could have said yes to a different right option, even if you did say no to another right option. In other words, you're removing your optionality by saying yes, which means that yes costs. Yes is expensive, whereas no is not necessarily expensive. Notice that I don't want you to ignore the opportunity costs of saying no to a good thing, but instead recognize that no to a good thing, doesn't necessarily mean no to all good things. It also doesn't mean no forever. When we say yes to something and we spend time on it, that's time that we can't capture back. And so if your yes is a large commitment, especially, it makes sense to make those decisions carefully. Make those decisions deliberately. And when in doubt, you might want to bias your decisions towards... No. We're going to take a quick sponsor break, and then we're going to come back and talk about a second principle that will help you make better software design decisions. Developer Tea is proudly supported by Square. There are millions of sellers across the globe using Square to run every aspect of their business. Many are looking for customized solutions that are deep-rooted and can be used to create a more efficient and sustainable business. And so if you're looking for a software design decision, you can use Square to run every aspect of their business. Many are looking for customized solutions that are deep-rooted and can be used to create a more efficient and sustainable business. Many are looking for customized solutions that are deep-rooted and can be used to create a more efficient and sustainable business. Many are looking for customized solutions that are deeply connected and easy to use. This is where you as a developer come in. You can grow your business by extending or integrating with Square using free APIs and SDKs to build tools for sellers. Learn more by going to developertea.com slash square. That's developertea.com slash square. Thanks again to Square for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Tea. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See you soon! Thank you.