“We tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long term.”

—  Tim Hurson

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long term." by Tim Hurson?
Tim Hurson photo
Tim Hurson 21
Creativity theorist, author and speaker 1946

Related quotes

Bill Gates photo

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

“When we get upset and angry about politics — whether it is conservative, liberal, or whatever — we tend to think in terms of right and wrong, not what we can learn.”

Charles A. Reich (1928–2019) American lawyer

The Liberals' Mistake (1987)
Context: The country we live in is a laboratory. We have one experiment after another. Unfortunately, it is not a laboratory where no one gets hurt: some lives are enhanced, others are ruined. We have to view our society with concern and passion, and see what we can learn from each of our experiments. When we get upset and angry about politics — whether it is conservative, liberal, or whatever — we tend to think in terms of right and wrong, not what we can learn.

Harald V of Norway photo

“We have been given an assignment as a monarchy, and we do as well as we can … We try to be as little populistic as possible. We don't do anything on the spur of the moment to win an opinion poll, or short-term popularity.”

Harald V of Norway (1937) King of Norway

Interview in Wenche Fuglehaug (November 21, 2005). " Norway's monarchy turns 100 http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1161406.ece", Aftenposten, Aftenposten Multimedia A/S, Oslo, Norway.

Ma Huateng photo

“Education and health care are not only commercial services, but also public and universal ones. So on top of commerce, what can we do to play our role? What can we do in terms of pension and health in an ageing society?”

Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur

"Tencent founder Pony Ma emphasises company’s investment in social value amid increasing antitrust and gaming scrutiny" in South China Morning Post (23 April 2021) https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3130836/pony-ma-emphasises-tencents-investment-social-value-amid-increasing

“What's happening in the world and in the ocean has changed our time horizon. We can be incredibly pessimistic on the short term, and mourn what we lost and what we really took for granted. But we can still be optimistic on the long term, and we can still be ambitious about what we fight for and what we expect from our governments, from our planet. Corals have been living on planet Earth for hundreds of millions of years. They survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. They're badasses. An individual coral can go through tremendous trauma and fully recover if it's given a chance and it's given protection. Corals have always been playing the long game, and now so are we.”

Kristen Marhaver American marine biologist

Source: Why I still have hope for coral reefs https://www.ted.com/talks/kristen_marhaver_why_i_still_have_hope_for_coral_reefs (April 2017)

Mariano Rajoy photo

“We do what we can do means what exactly means, that we do what we can do.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

26 June, 2017
As President, 2017
Source: Vozópuli http://www.vozpopuli.com/espana/Rajoy-Conteste-senor-Barcenas-telefono_2_1048115186.html

James Howard Kunstler photo

“Everything can tend toward diminishing returns and unsustainability, […] even in the short term.”

James Howard Kunstler book The Long Emergency

Source: The Long Emergency (2005), Chapter 7, p. 240.

Jeremy Hunt photo

“I will mitigate the impact of a no-deal Brexit on you and step in to help smooth those short-term difficulties. If we could do it for the bankers in the financial crisis, we can do it for our fisherman, farmers and small businesses now.”

Jeremy Hunt (1966) British politician

Tory leadership: Jeremy Hunt sets 30 September 'no-deal deadline' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48819260 BBC News (1 July 2019)
2019

Harry Truman photo

“The British, Chinese, and United States Governments have given the Japanese people adequate warning of what is in store for them. We have laid down the general terms on which they can surrender. Our warning went unheeded; our terms were rejected. Since then the Japanese have seen what our atomic bomb can do. They can foresee what it will do in the future.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Report on the Potsdam Conference (1945)

Erwin Schrödinger photo

“We cannot, however, manage to make do with such old, familiar, and seemingly indispensable terms as "real" or "only possible"; we are never in a position to say what really is or what really happens, but we can only say what will be observed in any concrete individual case.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

"The Fundamental Idea of Wave Mechanics", Nobel lecture, (12 December 1933)
Context: Conditions are admittedly such that we can always manage to make do in each concrete individual case without the two different aspects leading to different expectations as to the result of certain experiments. We cannot, however, manage to make do with such old, familiar, and seemingly indispensable terms as "real" or "only possible"; we are never in a position to say what really is or what really happens, but we can only say what will be observed in any concrete individual case. Will we have to be permanently satisfied with this...? On principle, yes. On principle, there is nothing new in the postulate that in the end exact science should aim at nothing more than the description of what can really be observed. The question is only whether from now on we shall have to refrain from tying description to a clear hypothesis about the real nature of the world. There are many who wish to pronounce such abdication even today. But I believe that this means making things a little too easy for oneself.

Related topics