Are you anchored in the wrong place?

The conflicted feeling when you’re more than halfway to your solution, but realize that there might be a better way. This is a dilemma that programmers and designers face frequently. It goes something like this:

1. You build an interpretation and a mental model of the problem
2. With this model in hand, you design a blueprint of the solution
3. You go down the path of implementing. As you do the actual work, you mental model evolves as you learn.
4. You realize that your design is inferior and your new interpretation allows for a better/simpler solution (remember, simple isn’t necessarily easy).

You now have a dilemma. You can continue down the current path and brute force the current implementation to be functionally correct, or you refactor with the new understanding in hand.

This is a conflict we face regularly. Next time you’re in this predicament, remember that you’re probably hesitating due to sunk cost and anchoring biases. You’ve invested so much and you just want to get it done. But what are the future costs of the inferior solution?