Recommend → Books

Ten takeaways from “It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work”

The first book I read this year, and it was good. Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson managed to balance the brevity and depth of their thoughts and keep their vision clear.

Instead of bringing new ideology or another corporate bullshit standard, they offer common sense as a universal tool—like a Swiss knife—to make decisions and handle chaos in any situation.

Their book is an easy-to-digest and ready-to-go manual for those who finally want to make a change at work and feel good about it rather than stressed, anxious, and humiliated.

Here are my ten takeaways from it:

  1. Bury the hustle, go with calm. Calm is meetings as a last resort. Calm is asynchronous first, real-time second.
  2. No goals. Goals are fake. Nearly all of them are artificial targets set for the sake of setting targets.
  3. Deliver updates in six-week cycles, no sprints. Fix a deadline and budget, flex the scope.
  4. Do good work. Most of the time it’s enough to stand out.
  5. Less is more. Stop chasing many and much, choose just one target, and aim.
  6. Protect your focus. Depth, not breadth, is where mastery is often found.
  7. Productivity is a myth. Filling every moment with something to do is all it’s about these days. Dump it.
  8. No public calendars. Time is the most valuable thing we have. We don’t have the right to decide how our teammates should spend it. We may think it’s a meeting, they consider it’d better be an email.
  9. No all-nigters and 80-hours weeks. Sleep, eat, and rest enough. In the long run, work is not more important than sleep.
  10. Hire only those who fit your mindset. No rock stars and fancy titles would do if you don’t feel right about the person applying for a position.

I came to most of these ideas while running my design studio. It was good to see that an ocean away there’s a company run by similar ideas and principles.

Check out the book at 37signals' website →

No Comments 2023

Hegarty on creativity: There are no rules

In London I bought a book by John Hegarty, an iconic British PR-manager and advertiser. The book has only 125 pages, but it’s the most captivating piece on creative thinking I’ve ever read. I ate it during my three hour flight to Moscow, and funny but literally can eat this book, 'cause it’s printed without ink.

Hegarty breaks all templates and familiar patterns that stuck in our heads, and reminds about simple truths we know, but we are too afraid to follow.

The book is written in a modern and clear language. Anyone with an intermediate level of English can easily read and understand everything Hegarty says. Here’s one of the feature quotes from the book:

Screw the rules, go hard.

The layout of the book is spectacular

I will not write a summary of the book as it’s too short. I outlined some quotes that stroke me with its power and certainty. Some of them are perfect to be typed in a beautiful font, printed and hung over your working desk.

Quotes from the book

  1. The greatest strategy you can employ is the truth. It is handy also, because you can always remember what you’ve said.
  2. When I’m asked, When do you do your best thinking? My answer is always, When I’m not thinking.
  3. When you are intent on putting a great wrong right, creativity will often exceed all expectations. Out of conflict comes purpose.
  4. Use juxtaposition.
  5. By looking in the opposite direction, you might just find something new.
  6. We must always remember technology is not an idea. It’s the means to express an idea. So under no circumstances should you become overawed by it.
  7. Don’t be afraid of technology
  8. So be careful. Don’t surround yourself with people who want to bury your ideas.
  9. The greatest creative people are great precisely because they hold on to a childlike simplicity and urge to question everything.
  10. So ask yourself. What excites me? What drives me?
  11. So take off your headphones and let the world in.
  12. Read shit, you’ll think shit and you’ll create shit. There’s no doubt you get better when you surround yourself with great things and great people.
  13. So, do respect what’s gone before. But revere it? Never.
  14. Constantly chopping and changing your speciality with hinder your success. Keep your focus!
  15. Practice only makes perfect if you make progress.
  16. Collaboration is great for sex not for creativity.
  17. Our brains still operate in an analog world.
  18. Spotting a right idea is as important as having it.
  19. Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”.
  20. You can make your own timing.
  21. Plan on failing. But when you do, don’t dwell on it.
  22. Money doesn’t have a soul. It’s a tool not a philosophy.
  23. Don’t read anything about yourself or your work in the press.
  24. Doing something quickly is not the same as doing it well.
  25. Every McCartney needs a Lennon.
  26. Your success will, in fact, distance you from the very world that stimulated the ideas that make you successful. It will isolate you.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and Telegram channel to receive new posts about writing, management, and leadership on this blog.

No Comments 2021