Published 2026-02-01 by TechNet New England
Every business has them - those little IT annoyances that everyone has learned to live with. The printer that needs to be restarted every morning. The software that crashes if you click too fast. The login process that takes six steps when it should take two.
"It's not ideal, but it works."
Except it doesn't. Not really.
The Hidden Math of Workarounds
Let's say your team has a clunky process that wastes 10 minutes per person per day. Doesn't sound like much, right?
For a 15-person office, that's 2.5 hours of lost productivity daily. Over a year, that's roughly 625 hours - or about 16 full work weeks. At an average labor cost, you're looking at thousands of dollars spent on... waiting. Clicking. Restarting.
And that's just one workaround. Most businesses we talk to have several.
Why "Good Enough" Persists
If these inefficiencies are so costly, why do businesses tolerate them?
The Switching Cost Fallacy
"We've already invested so much in this system." Sunk cost is a powerful psychological trap. The money you've already spent is gone regardless - the only question that matters is whether continuing costs more than changing.
Fear of Disruption
"What if the fix causes more problems?" This is valid. Poorly planned IT changes can absolutely cause disruption. But the answer isn't to avoid change - it's to plan it properly.
Invisible Costs
When productivity loss is spread across many small moments throughout the day, it doesn't show up on any report. Nobody's tracking "time spent fighting with the VPN." It's just... how things are.
Nobody's Job
In many businesses, IT problems fall into a gray area. Everyone's affected, but it's nobody's specific responsibility to fix. So the workaround becomes permanent by default.
Signs Your "Good Enough" Is Costing You
Some questions worth asking:
- How often do employees mention the same frustrations?
- Are there processes that require tribal knowledge to navigate?
- Do new hires take longer to become productive because of system quirks?
- Has anyone calculated the actual time spent on recurring issues?
- When was the last time you evaluated whether your tools still fit your needs?
The Upgrade Doesn't Have to Be Painful
Here's the thing - fixing these problems doesn't always mean expensive overhauls or weeks of downtime. Sometimes it's:
- A configuration change that takes an hour
- A different tool that costs the same as what you're using
- Training that helps people use existing systems more effectively
- Automation that eliminates repetitive tasks entirely
The first step is usually just identifying what's actually costing you time and money. Once you see the numbers, the path forward often becomes obvious.
A Challenge
This week, pay attention to the moments when you or your team work around a problem instead of through it. The restart, the refresh, the "just give it a minute." Write them down.
You might be surprised how much "good enough" is actually costing you.