Execute Book
March 9, 2013
Josh Long an Drew Wilson made a very good example of “executing” when they wrote a whole book about executing in only 8 days from idea to finish. It’s a long time ago since i read a complete book on one day and i really enjoyed it. It’s fascinating to see how something as awesome as Space Box was built in just five days and learn a little bit about the mindset of the developer behind it, Drew Wilson. I honestly didn’t expected that much of inspiration from this book and i can definitely recommend to read it.
I’ll share some thoughts i had while and after reading this book.
Do things that make you feel “completely jazzed”
There’s no reason spending time planning, thinking or even working on things that won’t make you jump out of bed on a monday morning in excitement to move it forward.
Don’t plan, it’s just guessing after all
A lot of people will tell you that you need a thorough plan if you want to achieve something. Especially if you quit your “normal” job and start to work on your own. That’s bullshit. A plan is nothing. Decisions are important. But decisions can’t be made in advance. Build, make decisions on the way, change things and move on (or start over again).
Be fluid, be open to change the entire time.
Serial idea listing is a bad habit
I would consider myself a big list-maker. I’ve got tons of books filled with unfinished scribbles, infinite lists of ideas i never really started and projects that never came nearly close to the surface.
Josh Long makes a point in this book when he says that if you make idea-lists at the end you will waste your time managing ideas instead of executing. After all, the ideas really worth pursuing are the ones that stick with you. They will find their way to your mind even if you don’t write them down in all the glory details.
The Smallest Possible Version
One of the most recurring questions that Drew and I receive in regards to building products is, “how do i know what to build?”
Our answer is always this: “look to build the smallest possible version of your best idea”
I really love that idea and if you got any intentions on building something for yourself you should read at least this one chapter. Sounds easy, but building something small is hard work and needs a lot of saying “no” to feature ideas etc.
Never try to force inspiration.
Staring at your screen for 12 hours without inspiration won’t make you feel inspired. You will feel tired and bad. If you don’t feel inspired, go for a walk, take a shower, read a book or do something completely different. But try to be ready when inspiration comes back and use as much of this energy when its present.
Find something that recharges your inspiration batteries while working on something
Identify things in your workflow that come easily to you and that don’t need all your brainpower to do. Maybe that’s designing, maybe that’s writing. Doesn’t matter what, save those things for when inspiration decreases. Instead of fight yourself through that part, do something which is easy to you until inspiration energy kicks in again.
Stick to what you know!
I like Drew’s idea of using what you are familiar when you want to execute fast. If the whole thing grows over the top later you can always adjust and change it, even if that means swapping the whole backend or building everything from scratch. It’s more important to ship than to have everything complete and perfect from the beginning.
Worth reading!
As i said, i enjoyed reading this book and it inspired me more than expected. There are some small typos and some repeated things, but that’s excusable given the fact that they only gave themselves 8 days to produce this book. Go order your copy, i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i did.
You can order your copy of the Execute Book here.
Thanks Josh. Thanks Drew.