It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work
by Fried, Jason
Published: October 2, 2018
Read: April 2, 2019
Review
Good ideas. Against the grind aggressive culture of most startups. Clear and short. Like this summary.
Notes
#Book Chp1
Crazy at work is the norm. Mark of stupidity. Soloprenuers, the problem is there isn't more uninterrupted time. Less bullshit needed. Stress bleeds into life. Basecamp without who driven goals and bullshit. Staff of 48 has vacation <40 work weeks distributed. Stress bleeds into life. Jason and David run Basecamp in 2003 is PM tool.
Chp2
Your company sells a product. Your company is a product. Do people know how to use your company? Does your company have bugs places where organixangal faolutes? iterate and test don't just ingrain fads of management for when you started.
Chp3
Bury the hustle and the grind. Some find themselves, some don't. You conquer oor capture the market. Only care about economics not market share and beating competitors.
Chp4 setting goals
No goals at Basecamp. Only question at most companies is are goals ambitious enough. We want more and things to be better, but no thanks to chasing goals. Disingenious that artificial targets to stress about are something you would sacrifice for. Being fun, sustainable business, how bout that goal?
Chp5
Everyone wants to disrupt. We aren't and that's ok. Opportunity to do the work will come again tomorrow and go do good work. Chances are you won't and if you do you didn't plan it.
Cho6 no long term planning
Weekly planning for short term, little inputs. Nothing to lose when you don't predict. Little inputs to future.
Chp7 comfy is cool
Unless your uncomfortable with what you are doing you aren't working hard enough. Exception not rule. Response to questions situation. No individual negotiations.
Chp8 40 or 32 hours per week
8 hours is a long time. Doesn't feel long because stuffed with meetings and distractions.
Chp9 protectism
Guard secrets and market share, but not protect employee time and attention. Partial attention is barely attention. Need big chunks of time.
Chp10 Quality of hour
1x60. Unfractured time.
Cho11 Effective>Productive
Focus on being productive means being busy. Need to not do things. Don't pride work ethic of workaholics. People make it because they know things and are smart.
Chp12 Work doesn't happen at work
When you really need to get work done, you don't go to the office or go before or after time.
Chp13 experts
Most questions aren't that pressing, but experts get interrupted all the time. Now office hour s once a week. Big hit.
Chp14 shared work schedule
You have to make your case and you can't see co-workers calendar. Can't just reach in and take someone's time. Taking many peoples tome shoukd be a pain in the qss.
Chp15
No one knows if someone is working right now. How do you know f if someone is working if you cant see them? But how do you know when you can? Look at the work. Be a good boss and know what good work looks like.
Chp 16
Expectation of immediate response for everything! Almost everything can wait. Don't check sit for long uninterrupted stretches of time.
Chp17
Jomo. Joy of missing out. You should miss things.
Chp18
Boss sets example if how hard to work.
Chp19
Trust 🔋. Charged or discharged when ever something bad happens. 1-1 charged. 0 percent will always have problems.
Chp20
My door is always open presents onerous on boss. Ask real questions. What would you like to have done better? What should we do before website redesign?
Chp21
Owners suggestion considered priority.
Low hanging fruit may not be easier. Never having done it like social media doesn't mean low hanging fruit.
Don't cheat, sleep. Batters Iq and creativity. Font make it a habit.
Work life balance should be balance. If work can claim hours after hours or weekends then life should be able to take during work hours or workdays.
Don't care about resumes. Care about who you are and what you do. Interesting people. Take their work for it not word. Hire for a week.
Nobody hits the ground running.
Ignore talent war. Superstars are different at different companies. Nurture. Hire people can become.
Don't negotiate salaries. Pay at top 10% of market. Equal work and pay regardless of where you live. Bonuses quickly tested as expected salary. Never expect to sell company, so profit sharing. Don't churn it's draining.
Benefits makes you work. Blurs line between work and play so it's just work. We pay for 5k vacations. 1k learning. 2k charity match. 100 fitness allowance.
Open plan offices suck for privacy and space. Office should be like library.
Go off grid during vacation. And no unlimited vacation. 3 weeks and personal discretion.
Clearly communicate facts of dissmals. If fired, say goodbye day of then exlain a week later.
If everyone needs to know it, then don't use chat. About implied constent.
Need fixed believable deadline. More work means more time.dewdlines fixed but also trimmed down if the team decides. Need to be reasonable.
Meetings is where a person presents then everyone reacts. Knew jerks and first impressions. Put the thoughts out then let people consider them.
Fridays worst for deadlines.
Behavior allowed creates new normal. Don't let things slide
Bad habits beat good intentions. Later is where good intentions go to die. Make change now.
Minimize dependencies. Release features if their ready for web not only if also for Android.
Consensus is not required. Someone in charge has to make final call. Disagree but commit.
Comprises quality. Good enough, let's you be excellent when you need to be. Challenge lies finding where ok is fine.
Better ideas aren't better if it arrives too late
Nothing is a good option often. No requirement to switch if people like it.
Never enough means wv
ork will be crazy. 2 minute response time is not that much better than 30 minutes.
Every ind
Whatever it is takes is too much. What will it takes asks for tradeoffs.
Obiligation elimination. To do more choose less. Turn away customers that pay with checks, turn swap.
3 person team very easy to coordinate and a designer.
Calculated risk with reversible.
Season changing with summer and winter to hunker down and do big projects.
Without profit, something is always on fire.
Leaving biggest customers have tons of control. Instead 99, a year for anyone. Now, the huge companies aren't super customers that feature requests rise to top. More sateifiying. One culture focusing on small businesses.
Ship it to test if it's good.
Things became harder not easier as time goes on. Instead of just attach, need defense.
It's no big deal and end of the world token you take one. People freak out of you don't care.
If small company is there good ole days, then stay there.