Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

My notes and highlights from Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.

My Favorite takeaways:

1. Good enough is fine. It’s better than wasting resources or doing nothing.
2. Say no by default.
3. Long lists are dust-collecting guilt trips. Start making smaller to-do lists. For example, break a list of a hundred items into ten lists of ten items.
4. Get into the rhythm of making choices. Decisions are progress. As you get in the flow of making decisions, you build momentum and boost morale.
5. Interruption is the enemy of productivity.
6. Go to sleep. Problems with not getting enough sleep:, Stubbornness, Lack of creativity, Diminished morale, Irritability.
7. Instead of trying to outspend, outsell, or outsponsor competitors, try to out-teach them.
8. Own your bad news. It’s better you tell the story when something goes wront than someone else.
9. Getting back to people quickly is probably the most important thing you can do when it comes to customer service.
10. There are four-letter words you should never use in business: need, must, can’t, easy, just, only, and fast. They get in the way of healthy communication, introduce animosity, torpedo good discussions, and cause projects to be late.

Highlights

• Writing a plan makes you feel in control of things you can’t actually control. We should really call them guesses.

• Have you ever noticed that while small businesses wish they were bigger, big businesses dream about being more agile and flexible?

• To do great work, you need to feel that you’re putting a meaningful dent in the universe or that you’re part of something important.

• The easiest way to create something great is to make something you want to use. You’ll figure out immediately whether or not what you’re making is any good.

• Right now, you’re the smallest and fastest you’ll ever be. From here forward, you’ll accumulate mass and the more massive a thing is, the more energy it takes to change its direction.

• Get into the rhythm of making choices. Decisions are progress. As you get in the flow of making decisions, you build momentum and boost morale.

• Big decisions are hard to make and hard to change.

• Long projects zap morale. The longer it takes, the less likely it is to launch.

• Invest and build your business around the core things that won’t change.

• Put off anything you don’t need, build the necessities now and worry about the luxuries later. There’s a whole lot that you don’t need on day 1.

• Abstractions like reports and documents create illusions of agreement where aundred people can read the same words and each imagines a different thing.

• Interruption is the enemy of productivity. Successful alone-time period means letting go of communication addiction to instant messages, phone calls, emails, and meetings.

Meetings are toxic:

The worst interruptions of all are meetings.

• Here’s why: They’re usually about words and abstract concepts, not real things.
  • They usually convey an abysmally small amount of information per minute.
  • They drift off-subject easier than a Chicago cab in a snowstorm.
  • They require thorough preparation that most people don’t have time for.
  • They frequently have agendas so vague that nobody is really sure of the goal.
  • They often include at least one moron who inevitably gets his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense.
  • Meetings procreate.
  • One meeting leads to another meeting leads to another …

• Say you invite 10 people to a one-hour meeting. That’s really a ten-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting.

• Good enough is fine. It’s better than wasting resources or doing nothing.

• Find solutions that get the most while doing the least.

• Recognize that problems are negotiable.

• Quick wins: Momentum fuels motivation to keep you going. You build momentum by getting something done and then moving on to the next thing.

• The longer something takes, the less likely it is that you’re going to finish

• Go to sleep. Problems with not getting enough sleep:, Stubbornness, Lack of creativity, Diminished morale, Irritability.

• Your estimates suck, we’re all terrible estimators. The longer the timeframe, the more of a fantasy it is.

• The solution: Break the big thing into smaller things. The smaller it is, the easier it is to estimate.

• Long lists are dust-collecting guilt trips. Start making smaller to-do lists. For example, break a list of a hundred items into ten lists of ten items.

• Divide problems into smaller and smaller pieces until you’re able to deal with them completely and quickly.

• Prioritize visually and put the most important thing at the top. The next thing on the list becomes the next most important thing. You’ll only have a single next most important thing to do at a time. And that’s enough.

• If you’re successful, people will copy you.

• But there’s a great way to protect yourself from copycats: Make you part of your product or service. Make it something no one else can offer.

• Pick a fight. Ex: If you think a competitor sucks, say so.You’ll find that others who agree with you will rally to your side. Being the anti-______ is a great way to differentiate and attract followers.

• Underdo your competition. One-upping, Cold War mentality is a dead end that costs you massive amounts of money, time, and drive. Instead, do less than your competitors to beat them.

• Don’t just bulid something better, redefine the rules

• Say no by default.

• Don’t make up problems you don’t have yet. Many of the things you worry about never happen and it’s not a problem (yet).

• Instead of trying to outspend, outsell, or outsponsor competitors, try to out-teach them. Teaching probably isn’t something your competitors are even thinking about.

• Chefs put their recipes in cookbooks and show their techniques on cooking shows.

• As a business owner, you should share everything you know too.

• Imperfections are real and people respond to real.

• Never hire anyone to do a job until you’ve tried to do it yourself. You’ll understand the nature of the work.

• Hire slowly to avoid winding up at a cocktail party of strangers that don’t talk about anything real or deep

• A cover letter is a much ebtter test than a resume because appliants cant churn out hundreds of personalized letters.

• Managers of one are people who come up with their own goals and execute them.

• Own your bad news. It’s better you tell the story when something goes wront than someone else.

• Getting back to people quickly is probably the most important thing you can do when it comes to customer service.

• The number-one principle to keep in mind when you apologize: How would you feel about the apology if you were on the other end? Would you believe them?

• Culture is the byproduct of consistent behavior.

• We’re all capable of bad, average, and great work. The environment has a lot more to do with great work than most people realize.

• There’s untapped potential trapped under lame policies, poor direction, and stifling bureaucracies.

• If casual Fridays or bring-your-dog-to-work day were such good things, then why aren’t you doing them every day of the week?

• When you treat people like children, you get children’s work. (i.e. Employees needing to ask permission before they can do anything. This creates a culture of nonthinkers and screams “I don’t trust you”)

• No one sets out to create a bureaucracy. They sneak up slowly, one policy (scar) at a time. Don’t create policies because someone did one thing wrong once.

• There are four-letter words you should never use in business: need, must, can’t, easy, just, only, and fast. They get in the way of healthy communication, introduce animosity, torpedo good discussions, and cause projects to be late.

• Stop saying ASAP. Everyone wants things done as soon as posisble. When everything is high priority, nothing is. It’s inflationary and devalues any request without ASAP.