As always, a thought provoking post. I work construction, and a common saying is 'do something, even if it's wrong.' There's some value to that, in terms of always appearing to be doing work to bosses that harsh your mellow if they see you taking a moment to think things over.

However, I have always instead advocated 'Don't just do something, sit there.'

Doing the wrong thing in construction means the materials and wages are expended in work that will not be acceptable. This is all wasted, and needs to be torn down. Tearing it down also costs money, and then the work still needs to be done. Doing the wrong thing costs at least three times as much, and taking a moment to just think about things is often exactly the right thing to do.

You can imagine that I have, on occasion, elected to pursue other employment when bosses that espouse the former saying noted that I wasn't always necessarily in motion. However, this is a good thing, as I prefer bosses that are happy my work never needs to be done over, or only rarely.

I reckon these principles hold true similarly in other fields and realms, though there are circumstances where doing something over just can't happen. It is those circumstances that most show that doing the right thing is always preferable to doing the quick thing.