I like David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) and Jason Fried’s style of writing. It’s very casual and often times funny. I’ve enjoyed reading Getting Real and Rework. I never felt motivated enough to read their other book, Remote.
Getting Real changed the way I think about projects and even my side projects. It didn’t have a similar impact on me as Getting Real had, but, it’s still a good book. All of these books tend to follow a similar narrative, busting the myths of common work practices.
DHH and Jason recently published their new book called It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work. I immediately pre-ordered the book. I got really excited once I received the book and started reading it.
Here are my takeaways from the book:
- Sustained exhaustion is not a badge of honor
- Being comfortable in your zone is essential to being calm
- JOMO (Joy of Missing Out)
- An hour can be spent with one focused 60 min block or fractured into multiple blocks of 15 min or so on. Achieve for the 60 min block
- If you want your employees to take a vacation, take one yourself. If you don’t want your employees to come in when they’re sick, stay home when you’re sick. This will help the employees to not feel guilty for doing so
- Trust Battery
- Sleep is very important
- Balance your Work and Personal time
- No fakecations (fake vacations). Go off the grid when on a vacation
- Deadlines are fixed. Not the scope
- Give enough time for an idea to settle in. No knee-jerk reactions
- “Disagree and commit” can be a thing. Letting the team know you disagree and you are still committing to the idea/project is always better than not letting the team know
- Spend the first week or two of the project to clarify unknowns and validate assumptions
- Doing nothing should always be an option in a project
- Embrace calm
Now, obviously, I didn’t want to steal the essence of the book and so, I am purposefully vague in the above points.
The book is pretty good. Reading through the first few chapters might feel like the book is challenging reality. But, later on, the authors talk about the problems in the current work environments and offer solutions to avoid/fix those problems.
My rating of the book: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (out of 5)
If you’re interested in following the books I read, here’s my goodreads profile.
Comparison is the death of joy
Mark Twain