How do you slow down and improve your attention to detail?

How do you slow down and improve your attention to detail?
 

Have been finding it extra tough balancing urgent requests / 10 things at once while maintaining a near perfect work product?

Does anyone else struggle with this or have perfected this?

5 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Not in banking anymore but used to be. These were some tips I used and still use in different roles.Check your file with the lens of it being something someone else handed you. Perpetually ask yourself the question "how is this other person trying to screw me over?"For aesthetic details, have a style guide in the form of a checklist and read the deck clockwise for each thing on the list.If you get a bunch of comments via email, hit "reply", delete the to line, and highlight items as you do them in the file.For analytical details, think of every single way your numbers should interact with each other, and check that it's the case. Is revenue less than operating income? Are your margins calculating correctly? Do your TTM numbers make sense relative to history? If you have a template, build checks for those things into your file.Often times, the mistakes that get you the most are the ones that reasonably sophisticated investors can pull from a page easily. Your MD will be much less upset if you nail the obvious stuff and use the wrong depreciation method than if you're showing negative depreciation.Any calc that you think is even slightly complex, write it out in your template using named ranges.But most importantly, care as if it's your job on the line. Take that one time you got chewed out by someone because you rushed through some analysis or whatever, and remember it before you hit "send". If you can't answer "how do I know this is right" then check it more until you can.

 

I usually do them in order of importance and take extra time for each. For reference I’m ~8 months in so I think most seniors probably also expect me to either take longer or mess up. So far I’ve gotten great feedback on the few mistakes I’ve made and very little negative feedback on taking extra time. Not sure if this is helpful to you, but definitely for 1st years

 

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