>"It's good advice, but hard to follow in practice. Often when you explore solutions to a problem, even simple ones, the problem reveals itself to be more complex than you'd anticipated. You find sub-problems, and tangental problems, which look just as important as the original. It's easy to go off track and end up deep into the problem you were supposed to just find a quick solution to. After all, it's just one more thing, you're thinking about it, and you'll have to solve it at some point anyway. Why not now?

I've made this mistake a lot. I'm trying to get better at being strict about saying "not now" to new problems that I discover in the middle of an iteration, and avoid getting sidetracked from shipping by working on things that can be left for later. I'd like to share a tactic I use to do this that has worked well for me. It's to ask a simple question about each new problem I encounter: "From my perspective right now, is this a nice problem to have?". If yes, I skip it. If no, I work on it immediately."

Opinion: There is great value to persisting problems that can be instantaneously or quickly solved, if only for the simple reason that they can be thought about; meditated upon; and other/better/more novel/more creative/more elegant solutions devised -- than the one initially determined by one's mind...

In fact, if in the future, I built a large company, and solved all known business problems (well, in that business's industry!), then I'd probably want to get rid of that company and start over again with nothing!

Why?

Well to again rethink/reengineer better solutions -- to the problem set that I once faced as barriers!

You will always think more creatively the second (and nth) times you revisit problems and problem sets!

This might sound crazy to most normal people -- but I value problem solving skills over money.

With problem solving skills, you can always get money -- but the reverse is not always true...

Anyway, excellent article!