A strategy for getting a haircut
Yes, even getting a haircut
Ok, so this one's a little far out there. I recognize that there aren't staffs and committees and CEOs clamoring for haircut strategies. But hear me out on this one.
A haircut is a stand-in for any routine task. Hair grows and we need to cut it once in awhile. Just like nails grow and we need to clip them once in awhile. Services are necessary and so bills need to get paid. We get tired and we need to sleep once in awhile. We get hungry and we need to eat once in awhile. You get the point. There's a lot of stuff we do all the time.
Not all need a strategy. Most of it's mindless. We just see a nail and we hammer it back in. The grass grows and we cut it. A lot of it doesn't require any additional thought.
But now and again we have a routine task that provides options and competition. Take my regular haircut.
I'm new in town (we live near Park City, Utah). That means when we moved in I needed to find a new barber. So far I've played the field, tried out a few different options, to see what works and what doesn't.
I tried two upscale places where you have to make an appointment at least three weeks in advance. No option for walk-ins. But they both require drive times upwards of 40 minutes roundtrip. One requires parking payment. They're more expensive. And one of these barbershops has cancelled on me twice, only notifying me while I was inbound to the cut (which is maddening).
The third option is a men's-sport-clip-type place. It's a nicer version of Great Clips that caters to men, and as my haircut's pretty straightforward, it's fine by me.
#3 comes with a wrinkle. They don't do long-lead appointments, but they do have an online signup system. Day-of, you logon to your account and select a time, say, in an hour and a half...and then in theory you can walk into the joint at that time and there'll be an open chair waiting for you. They've got a huge scoreboard looking thing with the names stacked up from the on-decker to the 11th person in the "line." You can imagine that's really appealing to loads of guys, because while they often can't forecast weeks out, they can make space for an hour or two on any given day. So the online signup's really popular.
But I think I've hacked it. So far I've noticed there's an over reliance on the online signup. If I get in late-morning or early afternoon, careful to miss the off-work lunch rush - the scoreboard shows 5-, 6-, or 7-plus people stacked up in "line" - but there's nobody there in person and I scoot right into an open chair.
This isn't high-concept, high-stakes strategy, but it is a useful orientation to success in a routine activity in which I'm competing against others for getting the quickest and best haircut possible at the lowest price. I surveyed the field, tried out a few approaches, and I think I'm on to what works.
Now on to a strategy for grocery shopping?