The small word before the task

An original imagined speech about planning a group project.

Before we divide the jobs, I would like to place one small word on the table. The word is just. It has been doing a remarkable amount of unpaid work in our planning.

We will just make a poster. Someone will just contact the visitors. Another person can just put everything online. Each task becomes light enough to toss across the room, landing most often beside the person who has done it before.

I do not suggest that every small request requires a committee. I suggest that the word should not be allowed to perform an estimate. A poster may need a photograph, permission to use it, corrected dates and another version when the room changes. None of those jobs disappears because the sentence describing them is short.

Ask the person what is involved. Ask how long they think it will take. Ask what information they need before they can begin. These are less elegant sentences than “just sort it”, but they may give the plan a better chance of existing outside the meeting.

We have good ideas and willing people. Let us avoid spending that willingness as though it renews itself whenever a little word is placed in front of a large afternoon.

Examine the methods the speaker uses to challenge the minimising effect of the word “just”.