“We’ll fix it later”

Later sounds organised as if there’s a point in the future where things are calmer, priorities are clearer, and someone has time to go back and tidy things up. In reality, that point doesn’t show up. New work comes in, priorities shift, or something else breaks. Theres also the creeping fear of being interrupted by walk-ups whenever you find some time to get involved in deep work. That is what Work From Home is for though, amirite?

How temporary becomes permanent

It’s rarely a conscious decision, it usually goes:

• quick fix goes in
• it works well enough
• people start relying on it
• it becomes part of the process
• nobody comes back to it

And eventually, that’s just how the system works.

The cost that builds up

The shortcut itself isn’t the issue, the problem is everything that builds on top of it.

You get:

• extra complexity
• more fragile behaviour
• less understanding over time
• reliance on one or two people
• and a system nobody wants to touch

At that point, even small changes start to carry more risk than they should.

When it shows up

This usually becomes visible when something else changes.

An upgrade.
A migration.
A new integration.

Something touches the workaround.

And suddenly:

• things stop working
• nobody is sure why
• and you’re trying to reconstruct decisions that were never written down.

What helps

It doesn’t need to be heavy.

Just a few basics:

• write down what you did and why
• keep track of things you intend to fix
• revisit the ones that actually matter
• and decide whether to fix, replace, or accept them

If it’s not recorded, it won’t get fixed.