Daniel's notes on Rework

Ignore the real world “That would never work in the real world." You hear it all the time when you tell people about a fresh idea.The real world isn't a place, it's an excuse. It's a justification for not trying. It has nothing to do with you.

And you have to be able to improvise. You have to be able to pick up opportunities that come along. Sometimes you need to say, "We're going in a new direction because that's what makes sense today."

The timing of long-range plans is screwed up too. You have the most information when you're doing something, not before you've done it. Yet when do you write a plan? Usually it's before you've even begun. That's the worst time to make a big decision.

Give up on the guesswork. Decide what you're going to do this week, not this year. Figure out the next most important thing and do that. Make decisions right before you do something, not far in advance.

Working without a plan may seem scary. But blindly following a plan that has no relationship with reality is even scarier.

Lock in lots of expenses and you force yourself into building a complex business--one that's a lot more dif. ficult and stressful to run.

Workaholics make the people who don't stay late feel inadequate for "merely" working reasonable hours. That leads to guilt and poor morale all around.

If all you do is work, you're unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what's worth extra effort and what's not. And you wind up just plain tired. No one makes sharp decisions when tired.

In the end, workaholics don't actually accomplish more than nonworkaholics. They may claim to be per-fectionists, but that just means they're wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task.

Workaholics aren't heroes. They don't save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.

Scratch your own itch The easiest, most straightforward way to create a great product or service is to make something you want to use. That lets you design what you know--and you'll figure out immediately whether or not what you're making is any good.

When you build what you need, you can also assess the quality of what you make quickly and directly, instead of by proxy.

Start making something What you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan. Until you actually start making something, your brilliant idea is just that, an idea. And everyone's got one of those.

Ideas are cheap and plentiful. The original pitch idea is such a small part of a business that it's almost negligible. The real question is how well you execute.

No time is no excuse The most common excuse people give: "There's not enough time."

There's always enough time if you spend it right. And don't think you have to quit your day job, either. Hang onto it and start work on your project at night.