I finally called my friend—I hadn’t called her at all this year. It was high time to catch up. I was telling her about the work I’m doing at the new job.

There is this document for the inspectors. Every 5 years, the inspector come and inspect. They last inspected 5 years ago. After the last inspection, the inspectors gave us a list of things that should be improved and corrected.

I was not there 5 years ago. Since I am here now, I can read the report and help the team verify whether any of the items still need to be done.

It’s a very common task for a project manager.

There are records that some of it got done quickly after the inspection, and that some things they asked for more time.

I took on the task to review and confirm which was what and help the team to do as much of the work left as they could.

As I explained to one of the engineers,

There is the doing of the thing

Then there is the documentation of the doing of the thing.

They are separate and different.

We’d been concentrating on the doing of the thing. Until now, when the time has come to catch up with the documentation of the doing.

The engineer said, “the doing of the thing—that’s the most important part!”

It might be. If the point is to keep the system working, it certainly is important. I smiled, “There is another possibility. A person could be tempted to skip the doing the thing, and create a documentation of the doing of the thing that doesn’t include any doing. A person could document that they have a plan to do the thing which skips over any doing.

It can feel so much like doing a thing: writing out a plan to do that thing. Or even a plan to create a plan to do the thing.

It’s hard to do things. And that’s the part I like.