Do It Right The First Time (DRIFT)

If you Do It Right the First Time, you’ll be DRIFT-ing along swimmingly (see what we did there?). DRIFT is the idea that, if you do it right the first time, you can cut costs by saving time and energy.

For instance, if you work at a paper office and you ship one thousand reams of paper to a company instead of one hundred (oops), that mistake is gonna cost you (maybe your job) and the company (besides fixing that order, if they do fire you, it’ll take time and money to find a replacement, train them, yada yada). Allllll over a tiny typo. Take the time to do it right the first time, and it will be easier to keep calm and carry on.

Also: DRIFT often goes hand-in-hand with JIT, which means just-in-time. The idea behind JIT is that companies should only buy what they need, when they need it, to save on warehousing costs. In other words, the opposite of stocking up Costco-style (actually, doing that as a consumer...JIT-ing, would be more expensive, since stuff’s cheaper in bulk, but for companies, it can save them when renting out entire warehouses, for instance, and still get bulk prices without major stocking-up). If you JIT when you DRIFT, you’ll theoretically cut costs via efficiency.

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)