Eyewitness accounts and memory recognition can be some of the foggiest and most unreliable pieces of information when time elapses.
When in doubt, get everything on “paper” and have it confirmed.
Business contracts, project timelines, payment agreements, etc.
We become too nice and don’t want to ask for these things because we feel it’ll add friction to the relationship or slow the process down.
What we fail to recognize, and this is true for other things as well, is that delayed gratification is more valuable in the long run than the initial warm and fuzzy feeling of a “handshake” agreement.
Inevitably, there will be a time when that contract, email chain, or otherwise needs to be brought back into focus. It becomes much less stressful to utilize those agreed-upon terms than the perceived frustrations or difficult conversations we’d have to have upfront.
Write everything down and get everyone to agree with upfront on the terms so that there are no question marks when a disagreement ensues. That is the worst time to try to agree on a course of action or confirm what we remembered we discussed before.
Often, everyone’s memory starts to get a little fuzzy.