The Discipline of Owning a Small Error Quickly
Launch library · evergreen read
A small error, corrected promptly and without fuss, rarely does lasting damage to a piece of writing or the trust readers place in it, but the same small error left uncorrected for months can quietly compound, especially once other writers begin citing the mistake as fact.
Quick ownership also tends to be less painful in practice than the anticipation of it suggests, since readers generally respond better to a fast, plain acknowledgement than to a defensive delay that only draws more attention to the original mistake than it would otherwise have received.
Building the habit of checking for small errors regularly, rather than waiting for a reader to point one out, keeps a writer ahead of problems rather than perpetually reacting to them after the fact. A short, regular review of recently published material, built into an otherwise ordinary schedule, catches far more of these small slips than waiting passively for a reader to write in and point one out.