I am reminded (yet again!) that I always need to be clarifying, repeating, and doing what can feel like over-explaining in the moment.
It really, really does save time, reduce friction, and end up building trust.
“The future is like weather: a thousand thunderheads on the horizon, a haze of weird thunder-sleet in our eyes, and we never know where the lightning is going to strike. The best we can do is prepare for each possible hit by testing the possibilities.”
-Warren Ellis
#Quotes
I’ve worked in an industry that prides itself on dramatic upheaval and reinvention my entire life.
Spending the time early-career to learn vi editing commands has proven to be one of the most durable investments I’ve ever made in my education.
“When asked how he would order his thoughts if he had one hour to save the world, Einstein sagely responded that he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and save the world in five minutes.”
-Jim Mattis
#Quotes
“The future is unwritten.”
-Joe Strummer
#Quotes
Wordle and Edison
I really enjoy playing Wordle each day. It’s now become a standard part of my morning routine. With a mug of hot coffee in hand, I start a new game immediately after finishing my journaling.
One of the things I genuinely appreciate about Wordle is how it reminds me that my mistakes actually contain valuable bits of information.
Maybe a letter isn’t in the word at all and can be ignored.
Maybe it’s there but not yet in the right place.
It’s all worth paying attention to and by carefully considering my mistakes, I’m eventually led to the right answer.
This applies to all things in life really.
Which makes me think of what Thomas Edison was talking about when he famously remarked,
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
As long as you’re learning from your mistakes, missteps, and failures you’re growing smarter and heading in the right direction.
What builds loyalty and trust?
Consistently delivering on your product’s core promise again and again, from release to release and in every single interaction.
I’ve been learning how to setup neovim as a modern writing environment, an interface into my Obsidian vault.
No, I’m not actually writing anything during the process - but the experimentation is just fascinating.
Am I repurposing a fusion powered turbine for use as a lawn mower? I mean, maybe?
“The easiest way to learn directly is to simply spend a lot of time doing the thing you want to become good at.”
-Scott H. Young
#Quotes
Always have a well-understood rubric for determining the difference between urgent and important things when you’re prioritizing your backlog.
This adds transparency and helps communicate your thinking in any planning discussions.
Bonus points if you socialize it well in advance too.
I’m pretty sure that asking an AI to create complex regular expressions based upon your conversations should be a specific part of the Turing test.
“Without gratitude what is the point of seeing, and without seeing what is the object of gratitude?”
-Epictetus
#Quotes
Are your clients repeatedly working outside of normal hours? Are they regularly adopting new features or still slogging along in older workflows? How is the time they spend within your application changing over time?
Meaningful product metrics should reveal user behavior patterns.
The platonic ideal for your product’s user interface is that it’s so intuitive that it requires little to no explanation. It just works.
Remember, however, that sometimes you can end up being a bit too clever for you and your clients' own good in this regard.
Elegant simplicity is hard.
Consider how the Apple Watch’s focus shifted fashion accessory into a heavy emphasis on providing fitness and health tracking metrics.
You should always start by solving a small - yet meaningful - problem exceptionally well. Then build upwards and outwards from that essential kernel.
Remember to consider the cost of NOT building something whenever you’re prioritizing features in your backlog.
What happens if you wait?
Something terrible? Nothing at all?
We are raised on fables of ants and grasshoppers and the harsh winter that’s looming up ahead of all of us.
We put things off because it seems responsible and - of course - there will be ample time left in the future to get around to it.
Remember, my fellow ants: tomorrow is never promised.
“People who offer bad advice are trying to relive their old glories.”
-Mike Maples Jr.
#Quotes
“The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue”
-Antisthenes
#Quotes
Your product is not for everyone. This is a totally acceptable state of affairs.
Define your personas. Know who the product is for and - equally important - who it’s not for.
BONUS: This will also help you figure out how to talk with them about the value you’re creating.