by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
Important questions to ask yourself to ensure you’re doing work that matters – don’t throw good time at bad work:
- Why are you doing this? What is it for? Who benefits? What’s the motivation behind it?
- What problem are you solving? What is the problem? Are customers confused? Are you confused? Is something not clear enough? Was something not possible that should be possible now?
- Is this actually useful? Are you making something useful or just making something?
- Are you adding value? Is the thing you’re working on actually making your product more valuable to customers? Can they get more out of it than before?
- Will this change behavior? Is what you’re working on really going to change anything?
- Is there an easier way?
- What could you be doing instead? What can’t you do because you’re doing this?
- Is it really worth it? Is this meeting worth pulling people off their work?
You can’t get meaningful things done when you’re constantly going start, stop, start, stop, start, stop.
Simple rules for meetings:
- Set a timer. When it rings, the meeting is over. Period.
- Invite as few people as possible.
- Always have a clear agenda.
- Begin with a specific problem.
- Meet at the site of the problem instead of a conference room. Point to real things and suggest real changes.
- End with a solution and make someone responsible for implementing it.
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