Management, operating principles, decision-making, and doing better work.
People sometimes use the word "impossible" too lightly. When I consider whether something is possible, I consider two angles first: 1. Is it logically provably impossible? 2. Is it against the laws of physics? It's rarely either, at least in my line of work. Putting a problem in these terms makes that clear, which is encouraging.
When solving a problem with an existing system, most people tend to add. But often, removing makes a design better. * Dieter Rams's famous principle is "Less, but better." * Strunk & White tell you to "Omit needless words." In fact, the paper People systematically overlook subtractive changes explores this concept. From the abstract: Improving objects,
When things are stable, you make plans by anchoring to the question "what will change?". With your customers, your company, technology, regulation or anything else about the world. This does not work when things are changing fast. If best-in-class tech changes every 6 months, or if your product strategy is up in the air, or customers
I've recently seen several engineers struggle when moving to the role of leading a small product team and managing a couple engineers. There are so many newly important meetings and Slack messages (that you could ignore as an individual contributor) and they take up most of your time, but don't feel like "real work"
Quiet quitting is a recent name for something I am sure has been happening for all of time. It probably has something to do with the person's life circumstances, or something about the macro environment being depressing, or whatever. But let me propose a simple economic justification. Consider the total impact of employment on a person. That includes
An object that has a lot of momentum is hard to stop. A bowling ball. An ocean liner. A person who will not allow themselves to be derailed. Physically, an object of any amount of momentum could be stopped in a very short time, if enormous force is exerted. And the same could apply, in theory, to mental affairs. But
* "less is more" (proverb) * "perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away" (Antoine de Saint Exupéry) * "omit needless words" (Strunk & White) * "It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer" (Occam'
Peter Thiel has [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18050143-zero-to-one] a 2x2 matrix: indefinite vs. definite, and optimist vs. pessimist. I want to be a definite optimist: imagine a better future and work to build it. Recently, I've been more of an indefinite optimist. * Hoping that startup inspiration hits, without a concrete plan to make
You could separate work from life. As in the phrase "work-life balance", work versus life. They can be separate buckets with separate goals, time slots, people, and emotions. Separation definitely makes sense. Work lets us pay for rent and groceries, but might not be fulfilling. Time with friends, hobbies, reading, side-projects -- it's all enjoyable
The single biggest thing that made me a better friend, partner, colleague, and mentor came from an unexpected place. Two years ago, I was working through a breakup and rethinking how I approach all relationships. At a conference in Berlin, I happened to participate in a Circling workshop. It's is easy to experience but hard to verbalize. Like.
