I’ve seen a lot of articles where the author insists that the key to business success is not being afraid to make decisions. Whether the decision is big or small, the theory goes, you should assess the situation and make a swift and decisive judgement on how to proceed. Sounds easy, right? Unfortunately, this line of thinking leaves out the other half of the equation.

What am I talking about? In short, even the swiftest decision requires some follow-through afterwards. Say that you decide to run a new ad campaign. You’ll need to write the copy, design the ad, negotiate a contract with the media owner, submit the ad, verify the proof, track responses, and so on. In fact, if you look at most projects, the time you spend making the decision to undertake the project is easily dwarfed by all the time and money it takes to implement it.

Although it’s trendy to say that making more decisions is the key to success, following through on the decisions that you’ve already made is probably a lot more productive than rushing to decide on the next big thing.