Advice on improving terrible attention to detail?
Hi Monkeys,
Title says it all but is there anyone that knew they had terrible attention to detail going into a banking analyst program and worked diligently to greatly improve it (particularly when it comes to modeling)? Would appreciate any tactical advice on improving beyond the simple double/triple check your work and print it out.
Yeah, I got yelled at by my VP / assoc on the first bakeoff I did until my attn to detail improved.
Some practical things you can do... - Always print your books and review by hand backwards (last page to first page) with a red pen - Make sure numbers tie across pages by pulling out the specific pages and highlighting them as you confirm they tie - Whenever you're called out for missing something, write it down on a post it and leave it somewhere you'll see every day - Use Factset's trace precedents tool to make sure numbers are coming from the right place - Build a "check" into your model (subtract assets from liabilities - adj. format to show three dec. places)
When I first started out, I made careless errors frequently. Although they seemed small in the moment, they often led to bigger issues down the line (ie. missing foot note and in the actual presentation someone looks for it and its not there - very embarrassing). I realized most of my mistakes came during things that I have done multiple times when I would miss a step or forget something minor in the middle of it.
A VP recommended I read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. This book changed my life. Gone are the days of silly mistakes and small errors leading to large disastrous results. The book says to create checklists for processes and problems you encounter; it may sounds too simple to work but the results are incredible and the book does a good job of illustrating this. Using the strategies in the book, you will almost entirely eliminate silly mistakes and flaws in your work. Obviously you will still make mistakes but they will be much rarer and relatively minor.