"Soon."
That one word cost me $50,000 and nearly tanked a product launch.
My mentor—let's call him David—stopped mid-sentence during our roadmap review. "When you say 'soon,' what exactly do you mean?" I remember rolling my eyes. David was a former McKinsey partner who'd successfully exited two startups, and here he was nitpicking over a single word.
"You know... soon. In the next few weeks?"
"Is that two weeks or eight weeks?"
"Does it matter?"
He leaned back. "You tell me in three months when half your team thinks they missed a deadline and the other half thinks they're on track."
He was right. Three months later, our iOS developer thought we were targeting a September release. Our marketing team had already bought ads for July. The confusion? Different interpretations of "soon."
That $50K in wasted ad spend taught me what David had been trying to drill into my thick skull: precision isn't pedantic—it's profitable.
At AEFIS, I went a bit overboard. We created this whole dictionary. Seriously, a glossary of terms. "Priority" meant it gets done before literally anything else—not "high priority" or "top priority," just priority. One thing at a time. "Committed" meant we'd bet the company on that date. "Exploring" meant we're thinking about it but haven't spent a dime yet.
My team thought I'd lost it. Then something weird happened.
Meetings got shorter. Like, 40% shorter. Why? Because we stopped having those circular debates where everyone's arguing different points because they're defining things differently. "Is this a priority?" had one answer. Not "well, it's important but..." Just yes or no.
Even better—people started trusting each other more. Sounds counterintuitive, right? You'd think all these rigid definitions would make things feel corporate and cold. Nope. When Sarah said something was "committed," everyone knew she'd move heaven and earth to hit that date. When Marcus said he was "exploring" an idea, nobody expected a prototype next week.
In AI work, this principle matters even more. AI is incredibly powerful, but it is also literal. It does not do "soon" any better than my iOS developer did.
The funny thing is, this lesson bleeds into everything. My wife and I stopped fighting about household stuff when we got specific. "I'll clean the garage" became "I'll clean the garage this Saturday before lunch." My daughter knows exactly what "curfew at 11" means (11:00, not 11:15, nice try kiddo).
David called me last month. "You still doing that dictionary thing?"
"Evolved it a bit, but yeah."
"Good," he said. "Most expensive lesson I ever learned too."
Want to Try This? Here's Your Starting Point
Don't go crazy like I did with a full dictionary. Start small:
Week 1: Pick your most painful word. For us, it was "soon." For you, it might be "urgent" or "quality" or "done." Define it. Write it down. Share it.
Week 2: Track how many times that word causes confusion. You'll be shocked. I guarantee it.
Week 3: Add two more words to your list. Only two. The ones that make you want to throw your laptop.
Week 4: Watch your meetings get shorter.
That's it.
Precision isn't about being a pedantic jerk. It's about caring enough to be clear. It's about respecting your team's time and sanity. It's about building things that actually work because everyone knows what "working" means.
Oh, and David? He was right about everything. But don't tell him I said that.