We recently printed the wrong back on a series of four colors of shirts that have the same front but in different colors and one gets a different back. Last order somebody screwed up and we printed the wrong back on that one design. Everybody was told to be careful this time and print that back correctly. They did a great job of concentrating on that, but in doing so didn’t catch that somebody reversed the colors of ink on one of the fronts…

Wikipedia says of momentum: “In classical mechanics, conservation of linear momentum is implied by Newton’s laws.[1] It also holds in special relativity (with a modified formula) and, with appropriate definitions, a (generalized) linear momentum conservation law holds in electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and general relativity. It is ultimately an expression of one of the fundamental symmetries of space and time, that of translational symmetry.”

I don’t know about the math of momentum, but I do know that if you screw something up, you will keep on screwing up. I know you are all nodding your heads, as we all know this. When things go right you are steering the great ocean liner ship with one hand on the wheel and the other with a cold beer. When things go wrong you have every muscle in your body and a 300 pound helper and you still can’t turn the wheel fast enough in the new direction.

When you make a mistake, make a huge effort to make things go right next time. HUGE effort! Things otherwise don’t go from bad to good. Also even with this effort, try to also cultivate a zen like approach and in the middle of all this effort take a deep breath or two or three even and re-examine everything and make sure you aren’t missing something new this time. Maybe get someone that wasn’t involved to proof the work, check the numbers and for damn sure get the customer to sign off. Invest in a physical sample this time? That is often very expensive as a cost of printing, but very inexpensive as an insurance policy for a high risk effort.

Like most things in life it isn’t easy. Much effort is required, but also you can’t be frantic in that effort.