The “Hole in the Door” Problem — Why We Stop Seeing What Needs to Be Done

There’s a joke about getting things done: if you ask your husband to do something, you don’t have to remind him… every six months. While I don’t have a husband, I do understand the humor—and the truth behind it.

Recently, I was getting ready to do some work around my house when a friend asked, “Are you going to cover that deadbolt hole in your downstairs door?”

“What hole?” I replied.

Sure enough, there was a visible hole where a deadbolt had never been installed. And here’s the surprising part—I had lived in that house for seven years and walked through that door multiple times a day. Yet somehow, I had completely stopped seeing it.

It wasn’t new. It wasn’t hidden. I had simply trained myself to ignore it.

What This Means in Business

This doesn’t just happen at home—it happens in business all the time.

We all have “holes in the door”:

• Outdated website pages we plan to fix “someday”
• Follow-ups we meant to send weeks ago
• Processes that are inefficient but familiar
• Small issues that slowly become permanent
  

At first, we noticed them. Then we delay. Eventually, we stop seeing them altogether.

The Cost of Ignoring the Obvious

When we stop seeing problems, they don’t go away—they become part of the experience we deliver to others.

Customers may notice what we’ve learned to ignore:

• Broken links
• Slow response times
• Incomplete information
• Missed opportunities
  

What feels normal to us can feel unprofessional to them.

A Simple Reset

Sometimes the solution is as simple as stepping back and asking:

• “What have I been meaning to fix?”
• “What would a new customer notice immediately?”
• “What have I stopped seeing?”
  

Today, I bought a cover for that hole. A small fix—but a meaningful one. In business, those small fixes often create the biggest improvements.