The modern world provides each person living in it with unlimited opportunities to do business.

There is no need to work 80 hours a day, standard 40-ka in general and completely enough. Work for 2, 3, 4 employees can be performed by one person, sometimes replacing entire departments. All this is thanks to technology. Today, expensive technologies that only large corporations could afford before are available to everyone.

There is no need to take risks, even equity can be saved. You do not need an office - all these are relics of the past. Business can be done from home with the same success, working with people from all over the world.

So, business without prejudice is a sensation in the world of business literature. 8th place in the TOP books of Amazon in the history of its existence after only 1 month from the date of its sale. 1st places in the categories: entrepreneurship, business management, management.

Rework Authors

David Hensson and Jason Fraid are successful American IT entrepreneurs. The creators and owners of 37signals, the authors of the book Getting Real (debut) and his third work Remote. Someone compares these talented businessmen with the "Mythbusters." Rejecting generally accepted laws of management, they manage not only to successfully conduct their business, but break out into leaders.

37signals is a software company. The staff is about 14-16 people, all of them work remotely in different parts of the globe. Their customers are over 3 million people, and monthly income is measured in several million dollars. Among the company's products: project management systems, knowledge, CRM, messengers. Applications Basecamp, Campfire, Highrise, Backpack - known throughout the world. To the Signal vs. Contributor Blog Noise signed by over 140 thousand people - one of the most popular in the world in its niche.

About the book ReWork. Business without prejudice "

"Readability"

A small volume - only 208 pages, of which the third part is funny illustrations, plus, large print, minus, a couple of pages of technical information. In fact - no more than a hundred pages of text, but what! The book was halved before publication, removing all the water, leaving only the most necessary: \u200b\u200bspecifics, practical recommendations.

It is read faster than Dontsova’s tabloid novels — 3 hours or one evening. Your brain has never before received such a huge amount of useful information in such a short period of time that there is a risk of experiencing enlightenment, the vision of doing business is turned upside down.

Personal experience of practitioners

From the first lines it becomes obvious - these guys are practicing. Jason Fraid and David Heinmeyer Hansson, without inventing, just talk about what they themselves know, what they profess, what they use in their work. And they have plenty of experience. At the time of reading, as if you are being transported to a party with guys who can be called the elite of the IT business, having the opportunity to hear a lot of friendly advice in an informal setting - it costs a lot. At the same time, their recommendations are individual, they relate specifically to your business, its problems. This thought will visit you repeatedly.

Book structure

Instead of parts, the book is divided into logical blocks: creating a business, its development, competition, growth, etc. Each part contains several small chapters dealing with specific topics, in fact - clear and concise tips. There are not a few of them in all - about a hundred, and each of the recommendations costs more than many other business books combined. Each issue is considered “from and to” - all the nuances, from the start of a project, creating a product or enterprise, to managing it: increasing productivity, overcoming obstacles, competitors and promotion, managing people, in other words, about everything that a businessman needs to know.

What is ReWork about?

Want to open your own business? Everybody wants. The problem is many - do not know how to start. Jason Friday and David Heinmeier Hensson will tell how. Want - without leaving work.

Already own a business? It doesn’t matter how successful it is, it can be done even better - to improve, using the advice of the book: increase income, and at the same time - gain more freedom. Where to move, how to develop ...

Who is this book for?

• For those who, in principle, are not visited by the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating their own business. Those who are afraid to take a chance, see entrepreneurship as an overwhelming burden, believe that they are not created for this. Maybe after reading, they will change their mind.
• For those many representatives of office plankton who are self-employed, dreaming of their own business or would like to simply implement their own project, but they are so sucked up by workdays that they do not see this possible.
• For novice businessmen and owners of small companies that already live their own business, this is their main occupation and main source of income. Most likely, many of them would like their business to flourish, they would like to outperform their competitors and make their enterprise more efficient.
• Finally, for seasoned entrepreneurs, referred to as “A-class” businessmen, business sharks. Much of what is read will certainly come in handy for them. We are not talking exclusively about IT specialists - for them it is from the Must Read series, but even if your business is far from information technology, this book does not lose value for you.

Why read?

This item is a rectangular shape from ink-painted sheets with a title on the cover of “Rework. Business without prejudice ”is better than any other means to motivate, inspire, relieve doubts and insecurities, at the same time it will lead you out of your comfort zone, bewilder, but most importantly, it will provide an excellent theoretical base that will become a navigation map in business.

Few principles

Business without prejudice

None of what is accepted by the orthodox: meetings, meetings of directors, meetings, sales specialists, advertising departments, even the growth of the company - all this is useless. Many accuse, criticize, they say "without this is impossible." By their example, two guys proved - not only possible, but it is much better.

There is always time

You can always instead of the traditional evening beer with friends, watching TV, playing World of Warcraft, before dreaming, allocate an hour of time to devote time to your idea. No, you should not work 16 hours a day, but everyone can find a couple of "extra" hours a week.

How to find an idea

"Scratch where you itch." Think about what you yourself would like to use. So did Pavel Durov and Mark Zuckerberg, as did Bill Bowerman, with the founder of Nike, when rubber was poured into the home waffle iron to create a “waffle” sole for his team’s runners.

Plans and planning

Let's call a spade a spade. Plans are just speculation. Business plans are business guesses, strategic plans of an enterprise are strategic guessing. Do not let the past rule your future, improvise, instead of sticking to the path that was originally intended.

Eliminate Interruptions

When do you work most productively? Each freelancer will answer - at night. And all because no one distracts you at this time of day. It is impossible to complete important things in the "start - stop, start - stop mode.

Another hundred tips await you on the pages of the book.

Someone notes ReWork’s ideological affinity with Tim Ferris’s “”. Some compare with the books “Partisan Marketing” by Jay Levinson and “Fuck it, take it and do it” by Branson. All of the above are worthy of attention.

The book Rework: Business Without Prejudice became a bestseller in America immediately after its release. And no wonder - it overturns the well-established ideas about the “proper” conduct of business, which in fact often hinder success. The authors, two successful entrepreneurs, tell you how to start or improve your existing business, or rather your views on it, in order to gain an unprecedented degree of freedom and get much greater efficiency.

The book "Rework: business without prejudice" will be very useful for both beginners and experienced entrepreneurs. At the same time, it inspires, confuses, takes you out of your comfort zone and provides a useful practical base. You did not suspect that a business could be like that!

What is the book "Rework: business without prejudice"

How to start a business. If you want - in parallel with the main work. And how to improve your existing business, or rather, your views on it. In order to gain an unprecedented degree of freedom.

About what is the optimal size of the company, why should it grow, what and how to actually plan and whether to learn from mistakes. And about many other things, familiar and unexpected.

The book is written by practitioners. Jason Fride and David Heinemeyer Hensson are highly successful internet entrepreneurs who founded the legendary 37signals. A company of 14 employees, whose products are used by more than three million people around the world!

Read in one go. Dispels all doubts on distant approaches. Inspires. Confusing. Leads from the comfort zone. And gives a useful practical base.

You did not suspect that the business could be SUCH.

“Scrape it on the surface, and you will find out that the inhabitants of the“ real world ”are filled with pessimism and despair. Worse, they also want to drag the rest into their grave. If you are full of hope and ambition, they will try to convince you that it is impossible to realize your ideas. They will say that you are wasting your time. Do not believe them. Such a world may be real for them, but that does not mean that you must live in it. "

Who is this book for?

“This is an unusual business book, designed for unusual people.

For seasoned entrepreneurs, punchy businessmen of class "A". People who feel they have been born in order to create, lead, and conquer.

For small business owners. They may not be class A, but their business is at the center of their lives. They are in search of competitive advantages that will help them do more, work more efficiently and set the heat for others.

It is also for those people who are immersed in their main job, but always dreamed of doing some kind of their own project. Or maybe they like what they do, but their boss doesn't like it. Or maybe they are just bored. They want to do what they love and get paid for it.

Finally, it is for all those who have never thought about how to independently create a business. Maybe they do not think that they are created for this. Or maybe they’re not sure that they have enough money, time or confidence to figure it out. Or maybe they are just afraid to take risks. One way or another, this book is for them too. ”

about the author

Jason Fride and David Heinemeyer Hensson are successful entrepreneurs, founders of 37signals. The programs created by this company (in which there are only 39 regular employees!) Are used by more than 3 million people around the world. Among them, Basecamp is a project management system, Backpack is a knowledge management system, Highrise is a CRM system and Campfire messenger. Friday and Hensson are the authors of the bestselling book Getting Real. Their blog Signal vs. Noise is one of the most popular, more than 114,000 people are subscribed to it!

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Key Business Ideas by Jason Freud and David Heinmeier Hensson

Rework is a book on how to start a business. And how to improve the existing business. And how to look at your business with different eyes. This book is written by practitioners: Jason Fride and David Heinmeier Hensson are highly successful Internet entrepreneurs who founded the legendary 37signals company, which employs only 14 employees and whose products are used by more than three million people around the world. With the permission of SmartReading, we publish the summaries of this business bestseller that she has prepared.

Smartreading   - A new project by Mikhail Ivanov and his partners, co-founder of one of the leading Russian business literature publishers Mann, Ivanov and Ferber. SmartReading releases the so-called Sammari - texts that summarize the key ideas of best-selling non-fiction genres. Thus, people who for some reason cannot quickly read the full versions of books can get acquainted with their main ideas and theses. SmartReading uses a subscription business model in its work.

Training

Everyone can do business today. Previously inaccessible tools became available. One person is able to carry out the work of two, three employees, and in some cases the whole department. Things that were impossible a few years ago are simple today.

Now you have the opportunity to work from home and interact with people who live thousands of kilometers from you.

“In the real world, it will never work” - you hear it every time you tell people about a fresh idea. Our company fails the "tests" of the real world in all directions. In the real world, you cannot have a dozen employees distributed across eight different cities on two continents. You cannot attract millions of customers without ads and sellers. Don't risk revealing your success formula to the rest of the world. But we did all this and succeeded.

Turning guesses into plans, you enter a dangerous territory. Plans allow the past to control the future. They put blinders on you - plans are incompatible with improvisation.

Acting according to circumstances is normal. Just board a plane and take off. You can buy a nice shirt, shaving cream and a toothbrush when you get to the place.

The prospect of working without a plan can seem daunting. But blindly following a plan that has nothing to do with reality should scare even more.

It is believed that the larger the company, the more professional and powerful it is.

Why it happens? Is the size of the business related to its success? What is wrong with finding the “right size” and staying in it? Does it ever occur to anyone to say about Harvard or Oxford: “If only they began to expand, they hired several thousand more professors, and in addition opened other campuses around the world ... then these would be great schools”? Of course not. The value of these educational institutions we measure differently. Why should business valuation be different?

Do not be shy about your desire to be the owner of a small business. Anyone who runs a stable and profitable business, no matter whether he is big or small, can be proud of himself.

Act!

To do first-class work, you need to believe that you are doing something special. That you leave a significant mark in the universe. That you are part of something important.

If you're going to do something, focus on what matters.

The easiest and most obvious way to create a first-class product or service is to do something that you yourself want to use.

At 37signals, we make products that we ourselves need to conduct our business. For example, we needed to learn to keep track of who we were talking with, what the conversation was about and when we needed to call back the next time. So we created Highrise, our contact manager. We did not need focus groups, marketing research or intermediaries. Each of us has a friend who says: “I myself had an idea to make eBay. If I started working on it, I would be a billionaire now! ”Such logic looks pathetic, if not to say - crazy. The authorship of the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating eBay has nothing to do with the direct creation of eBay. What matters is only what you do, not what you think, say, or plan.

An idea will remain just an idea until you start to do something.

“I don’t have time for this” is the most frequent excuse people use. This is just an excuse. Time is always enough if you spend it correctly. And for this you do not need to leave your permanent job. Start working on your project in the evenings.

The ideal time to start a business will never come. You are always either too young, or too old, or too busy, or too tired, or anything else. If you are constantly worried about choosing the perfect moment, it will never come.

During your work, do not forget about why you are doing exactly what you are doing. Great businesses have their own point of view, and not just a set of products and services.

For example, Whole Foods sees its mission as selling top-quality natural products. They do not spend time on endless discussions about finding suitable products. No one asks: “Should we sell this product with artificial flavors?” - because the answer is obvious. Therefore, you cannot buy Coca-Cola or Sneakers in their stores. This conviction means that products at Whole Foods are expensive. Some envious people even call the company "tidy sum" and taunt those who shop there. Well, so what? Whole Foods feels great.

Do not forget that there is a huge difference between really firmly adhering to a certain position, and having a formal mission of the company, which says about following this position.

Defending your beliefs does not mean just writing them down. This means believing in them and living them.

One of the first questions you are likely to ask is where to get the money for your project. Perhaps too often, people think the right answer is to attract them from the outside.

Regardless of which business you want to start, attract as little external money as possible. The idea of \u200b\u200bspending other people's money may seem attractive, but by doing so you put a loop around your neck, because:

you lose control of your business;

spending other people's money is addictive;

this is usually a bad deal;

customer opinions are discounted when developing a business.

raising money is incredibly distracting. You need less resources than you think.

Do you really need ten people or two or three for now? Do you really need 500 thousand dollars or will 5 thousand be enough? Do you really need a large separate office or can you rent an office together with another company for some time (or even work at home)? Do you really need a warehouse or can you use your garage / basement? Do you really need to buy ads and hire a PR agency, or are there other ways to get noticed? Etc.

There is nothing wrong with being economical. First-class companies usually start in the garage. And yours is no exception.

Start a business, not a startup.

Startup is a magical place. This is a place where costs are not your concern. Where the annoying concept of profit is never discussed. Where you can spend other people's money until you find a way to make money yourself. This is a place to which the laws of business are not applicable.

Anyone who applies the point of view “we will figure out how to become profitable in the future” to business is ridiculous. Without a clear understanding of how to become profitable, a business is not a business - it is nothing more than a hobby!

Creating a company with the intention to sell it in the future, you incorrectly place accents. Instead of winning the love of customers, you are looking for a buyer. This is the wrong position.

Suppose that you ignored this advice and managed to successfully cope with the task. You created a business, sold it and received a great reward. What then? Moving to the island and sipping pinacolada all day? Does it really make you happy? Are you sure that this is better than doing business that you like, whose success you believe in?

Evolve

The lack of opportunities for waste forces you to be inventive.

Southwest Airlines, unlike most other carriers that fly on several aircraft models, uses only the Boeing 737. As a result, every Southwest pilot, flight attendant and member of the ground crew can serve any of the company's flights. In addition to this, in Southwest, all spare parts are suitable for any of the aircraft. This means lower costs and easier business to manage. They themselves simplified their lives.

Create half the product, not the unfinished product. Better to have a cool half than a stupid whole.

When you start something new, there are a number of forces: there are things you can do, things you want to do, and things you have to do. From what you have to do, and you need to start, that is, from the epicenter.

For example, if you want to open a tent for selling hot dogs, you can worry about seasonings, the tent itself, the name, design. But the first thing you should take care of is the hot dogs themselves. Hot dogs are the epicenter. Everything else is secondary.

To understand where the epicenter is, ask yourself the question: “If I take this away, will what I sell still exist?”

Take decision making seriously. Do not wait for the perfect option. Make a decision and move on.

It doesn’t matter how long you plan, anyway, things will go awry.

When something does not work, the usual approach is to throw more resources at solving the problem. All this ultimately leads to an increase in the problem. The right approach is to act in the opposite direction, that is, to reduce.

If you start to shift deadlines and increase your budget, you will never stop.

Your whole business should be built around what remains unchanged. That which interests people right now and will interest them ten years later.

Amazon.com focuses on fast (or free) shipping, great assortment, good return conditions and reasonable prices.Japanese automakers are also focusing on basic principles that remain unchanged: reliability, affordability and practicality.At 37signals, we focus on things like speed, simplicity, usability and comprehensibility. These desires are timeless.

Use what you already have, or what you can get inexpensively. Then act. It’s not your inventory that matters. The bottom line is that you show the maximum of what you are capable of using the means at hand.

Set aside all that you do not need to run. Create everything you need now, and leave all the luxuries for later. There are a lot of things that you will not need right on the first day.

But do not confuse the proposed approach with saving on quality.

Productivity

The business world is littered with dead documents that only eat up your time. Real understanding arises in the transition to something more real.

Here is a list of important questions you need to ask yourself to make sure: you are doing exactly what matters.

Why are you doing it? What problem do you solve? Do you add value? Is there an easier way? What could you do instead? Is it really worth it?

Before diving into something, determine the real value of the upcoming business.

Sometimes stopping work is the right step, even if you have already put a lot of effort into it. Do not waste good time on poor work.

Do not go ahead in making decisions! Look for a judo-style solution, one that will be most effective at the lowest cost. All “judo decisions” come down to making more and getting more.

The more time a business takes, the less likely it is that you will finish it. But even if you bring it to the end, most likely, it will not be performed well enough.

When we assume how much time is required for certain actions, we are not just mistaken - we are mistaken very much. A possible solution is to break up large tasks into small subtasks.

Try to divide time segments into small parts. Instead of planning a single project for 12 weeks, break it down into 12 one-week projects. Instead of witchcraft over tasks that require more than 30 hours, break up your work into more realistic 6-10 hour segments. And then move forward step by step.

Big decisions are hard to make and change. It’s best to have achievable goals.

Competitors

If you are successful, people will try to copy what you have done. But there is a great way to protect yourself from imitators - to become part of your product or service yourself. Embed your unique mindset in what you sell. Add something to the product that others cannot offer.

Copying in business is a failure. The problem of copying is as follows: the stage of understanding, awareness of the underlying mechanisms by which business grows is skipped.

If you think your competitors suck, say so.

For example, Dunkin ’Donuts likes to position itself as“ anti-Starbucks. ” Their ads taunt the "Frytalian" terms that Starbucks uses instead of the usual "small," "medium," and "large." Even a special site, Dunkinbeatstarbucks.com, was created on which visitors can send electronic cards to their friends with the following statements: “Friends do not let friends drink coffee at Starbucks.”

The generally accepted wisdom says: to get around your competitors, you need to have an advantage over them, that is, do more than they do. Is there any other way? Yes there is. To defeat competitors, do less than them.

Feel free to know that your product or service does less. Show it off. Be proud of it. Sell \u200b\u200byour “minimum” as aggressively as competitors sell their long lists of opportunities.

Instead of manic studying competitors, focus on yourself. Spending time worrying about someone else, you cannot devote it to improving your own affairs. If you plan to create an “iPod killer” or “next Pokemon,” you are already dead. You let competitors set parameters. You cannot beat Apple in their field. You can not beat those who establish the rules of the game. You need to change the rules, not just improve the product a bit.

Evolution

“If I listened to my clients, I would have to give them a faster horse” - Henry Ford

Answering customers “yes” is very easy. Yes - adding another feature, yes - overly optimistic milestones, yes - mediocre design. Soon, the mountain of everything you said “yes” will become so high that you will not see the true goals that you really should strive for.

Do not believe that "the customer is always right." Being able to bring joy to several loud customers is not worth it to spoil your product for everyone else.

This does not mean that you need to automatically say no to customers. Just be honest. If you do not want to give in to the client’s request, be polite and explain why.

The main thing is that you like your product yourself.

Perhaps you have come across a similar scenario before: the company has a client who brings her a lot of money. The company is trying in every way to please him. Such a policy leads to "sharpening" the product to the requirements of one client and cooling your relations with the bulk of them. Once it all ends with the Big Client leaving the company, and you are left with a “suitcase without a handle” - a product ideal for someone who is no longer with you, but poorly suitable for everyone else.

The number of those who do not use your product will always be more than the number of users. Do everything so that as many people as possible can easily start using it. This aspiration has continuous growth potential.

Promotion

When you first start, you do not know. Use this time to make mistakes that the whole world will not hear about, make adjustments, work on imperfections.

Broadway shows serve as a great example of how ideas first go on the run in small stages. Before debuting in New York, the premiere is usually held in some small town. Such “testing” allows actors to study the public’s reaction before the show is presented to the court of harsh critics and taste-setters.

Each company has customers. Happy ones have fans. And the most successful ones have audiences. The audience can be your secret weapon.

When building an audience, you do not need to buy people's attention - they themselves give it to you. This is a huge advantage.

So create your audience. Tell, publish ... anything. By sharing valuable information slowly but surely, you are sure to create a loyal audience. And then, when you need to be heard about you, the right people will be ready to listen.

Train - and you will “bind” people to yourself in a way that fans of traditional marketing techniques did not dream about. Training is your chance to beat major competitors.

If you want to attract someone's attention, it is foolish to follow the example of the bulk. You need to stand out.

Drug dealers are very far-sighted businessmen. They know: their product is so good that they are ready to give a small portion for free for testing. They know that what is caught on their fishing rod will return for the next portion - already with the money.Copy the drug dealers. Make your product fantastically good. Addictive. A product that is "not to be missed." So that you are sure, giving customers a piece of the sample for free: they will return already with cash.

To get started, create a small trial version of your product. Make a simple and understandable presentation that will give consumers the opportunity to try the product without spending a lot of time and money.

Do not be afraid to share for free. You should know that people will return "for the supplement." And if you are not sure about this yet, it means that you have not yet created a sufficiently strong product.

Do you have a marketing department? If not, good. But even having such a department, you should not think that its employees are the only people responsible for marketing. Marketing, unlike accounting, is not a department, but a way of life, something that all employees of your company do 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Recruitment

Do it yourself first. Never hire anyone until you yourself try to do it. So you will be able to understand the nature of this work, understand how its good result should look.

Hire when it becomes unbearable.

Avoid hiring people who delegate responsibilities, those who only tell others what to do. For a small team, such people are a dead weight.

Hire the very best candidates no matter how far they live from you.

Our head office is in Chicago, but more than half of our team lives in other cities, states and even countries - Idaho, Canada, Spain and five more places. Limiting the search for candidates only to the city of Chicago, we would have missed half of the excellent specialists we are working with.

Geography is no longer critical. Hire the best talents, despite their location.

Repair damage

If something goes wrong in your business, it will be better if you yourself make bad news, without waiting for the emergence of fertile soil for the spread of rumors and false information. Be a source of bad news about yourself.

Do not think that you will be able to hide unpleasant information. Nowadays, hiding is pointless. Secrets no longer exist. Remember the children's game of "spoiled phone." The same principle applies to the company. The longer the chain of intermediaries between customers and employees performing work, the more likely it is that along the way the customer message will be distorted or lost.

Negative responses are almost always louder and more emotional than positive ones. This is an axiom. Even if aboutmost of your customers are happy with the changes; you only hear negative voices. Against this background, it is important to refrain from a rash step and not back up the necessary but contradictory transformations.

Inspiration does not last forever

Each of us has ideas. They are immortal - unlike inspiration. If you have a desire to do something, you need to start it immediately.

In a state of recovery, you can do the amount of work in 24 hours, which in a normal situation would have to spend a couple of weeks.

There is something magical in inspiration, but it will not wait for you. Inspiration is momentary. If it has visited you, grab it and make it work.

Book of 37signals founders Jason Freud and David Hensson “Rework. Business without prejudice. "

This is the second book of authors. After reading their first book, Getting Real, I, inspired by her ideas, made "". The book talked about what you can and should do less, run earlier, and other fashionable things like FFF (Fix Time and Budget, Flex Scope). In the yard was 2008.

The first book, in my opinion, was more for developers, the second addressed to entrepreneurs, or rather, as the authors call their "beginners," but the book will be useful to hired employees as well. I can’t say that the book should be taken as a guide to action, but you can take a bunch of excellent motivating quotes from it and try to apply the company's approach, at least partially. At the same time, one should not forget about the “” phenomenon, when everyone pays attention to success stories.
  But personally, I read this book for the second time. Although Getting Real was closer to me in spirit.

So, below are some thoughts from the Rework book and quotes.

To avoid stress due to planning, try calling business plans "business guesses." After that, think, why worry about guesswork?
  Planning can be a good and right thing, but you also need to be flexible. It is not always worth going strictly according to plan. After all, then it turns out that your decision in the past governs the present and the future. Follow the path in which it makes sense today.

More on the subject of conjecture, Jim Kemp said well in his:

Become a blank sheet. Base your work on facts and information, not on assumptions and expectations, which often turn out to be completely wrong.
  Always open a blank sheet in your mind. It is impossible to overdo it in this regard.

In the modern office world, focused on the time spent in the office, it is considered necessary to award the medal “For Courage” to those who kill themselves on the project.
  But working no longer means taking care of the success of the business or doing more. It just means that you work harder. Workaholics try to solve a problem simply by devoting more time to it. They like to work overtime and they like to feel like heroes. Because of them, the others have a feeling of guilt and morale falls. And the real hero has long been at home; he has found a faster way to complete his business. Why not ROWE? (-:

Scratch where it itches. It is the “solve your own problem” approach that allows you to love what you do.
  When I did "" I scratched where I was scratching at that time: I was not born in Ryazan and arrived only when I entered the institute, and therefore did not know the city like the back of my hand. I often needed to know the transport routes, and I did the service that I needed. And he was useful to other people.

Stone in the garden of procrastinators:

Time is always enough if you spend it correctly.

Do not strive to do everything at once. It is impossible to cover everything in the world. To make a stunning film, the directors cut good scenes. The authors of Revolution between the last two edits cut the book in half. By cutting off the shoots you strengthen the branches you need.

A note for businessmen that procrastinators can wrap around their mustaches:

There are things that you can do, want to do, and that need to be done. With the latter and you need to start. Start at the epicenter. Everything else is secondary. What will not sell what you sell without?

At the same time, it is worth considering whether it is really necessary to work today all night long or can the work begun be completed tomorrow?
Is the press release your competitor really deserves your headache? As the saying goes, "the dog barks, the caravan goes." Take a course and stick to it, react according to the situation, but do not focus on the actions of competitors. Moreover, you do not see the whole picture. Your competitor today may differ significantly from tomorrow. This process is outside the scope of your influence. And what's the point of worrying about things that you still can't influence?

Instead of being a visionary, you become a reactionary.

You let competitors set parameters. You cannot surpass Apple, Google, Microsoft on their field. You can not beat those who establish the rules of the game.
  Instead of trying to win the competition - to sell more, spend more - try to educate your audience (not only customers and even fans, namely the audience) more than your competitors. It will bear fruit in the future. Now a wave of content marketing is rising, where everyone is trying to be useful to their audience. It works both just on the growth of traffic and directly the size of the audience, and on its loyalty. All other things being equal, they choose those who are also useful.

Try to find judo style solutions. Such a solution will be most effective with a minimum amount of cost of any resources. Most tasks can be solved in a simple and completely mundane way. You do not need to show all your awesome skills. You just create something as part of your work and move on. It is possible that with this approach you will not get admired ahs and okhs. Just do your job well and you will go far.

You can turn “good enough” into “beautiful” a little later. In one of the books on Internet marketing, I came across a term such as "exuberance." About this I talked about in May.

Again, note procrastinators:

The more time a business takes, the less likely it is that you will finish it. Or it will not be performed well enough. We need small victories.

Think for yourself, if we cannot accurately plan even one day, then how can we expect accuracy when planning a multi-month project?
  Break large tasks into smaller ones.
  Even if you do not have a big task, but just a long list, this brings some internal anxiety and fear. Break this list into pieces and work progressively.

Another plus of small tasks is that making tiny decisions is impossible to make big mistakes.

You must say: “We have finished this. Done! ”, And then continue to the next goal.

In a working atmosphere where no one offends anyone, there is neither enthusiasm nor love for the common cause.
  It’s bad when no one says: "This idea sucks." With this shovel of excessive tact, a grave for the common cause will be dug.
  On this topic, recently there was a small post on the website Professionals.ru

Quotes

Planning is nothing more than guesswork. What matters is what you do, not what you think, say, or plan. Start doing something.

If what you say doesn’t hurt anyone, maybe you’re just not trying hard (and most likely, it’s just boring).

Start a business, not a startup. Without a clear understanding of how to become profitable, a business is not a business - it is nothing more than a hobby.

Lack of time is no excuse.
  The perfect time will never come.

You need less than you think.
  Less is a good thing. Limitations are hidden opportunities. Limited resources force you to rationally manage what you have.
  Less is better.

Create half the product, not the unfinished product. Better to have a cool half than a stupid whole.
  You simply cannot do whatever you want, right away at a good level.

Ignore the details in the early stages. You will spend time making decisions that will change in any case.

There is no unexpected success. The path to success takes a long time.

Whenever possible, replace the phrase “Let's think about it” with “Let's make a decision on this.” Make a decision and move on, do not wait for the perfect option.

Breaks are enemies of productivity.

Meetings are toxic:

• usually these are just conversations and abstract ideas, not a discussion of real things;
• the amount of information per minute at meetings is negligible;
• their participants in two counts are removed from the intended topic;
• they require careful preparation, which, however, is never carried out;
• as a rule, meetings have such vague agendas that no one is completely sure of their purpose;
• they will inevitably have at least one idiot who will take his chance to spend the total time on nonsense;
• meetings give offspring - one follows the other, the other the third.

Good enough - that's great.

Do not be a hero. If you need to quit, quit.

Long to-do lists are never executed (see the post by Nikolai Toverovsky about closed lists).

Accept the challenge. Being “anti-” is a great way to stand out and attract followers.

Do less than your competitors.

Focus on yourself, not on them.

Do not confuse enthusiasm with priorities.

Let your fresh great ideas cool down a bit for starters. Do not start acting under the influence of the moment.

Revolutionary! New! Fashionable! Fast! Awesome! → Useful

Do not write anything.
  What is important you cannot ignore. Have you forgotten about some request? This means that it is not so important. The really important doesn't just disappear.

Do not be afraid to show your flaws. Show yourself to the world as you really are. People still prefer fast-withering fresh flowers to bouquets that perfectly retain their appearance, but are made of plastic.

Copy the drug dealers. Make your product fantastically good. Addictive. So that you are sure, giving customers a piece of the sample for free: they will return already with cash.

Marketing, unlike accounting, is not a department, but a way of life.

Never hire anyone until you yourself try to do it. So you will be able to understand the nature of the work performed, understand how its good result should look.
  At the beginning of the path, it is useful for you to delve into all aspects of your business. Otherwise, sooner or later you will find yourself in a fog, entrusting your fate to other people.

How long someone has been doing something is irrelevant. What matters is only how well he did it (see).

Today, writing is a currency for good people.

You are not creating a culture. She comes with time. Therefore, young companies have no culture. Culture is a byproduct of certain behaviors. Do not plant it. Culture cannot be established.

All decisions are temporary.

By treating employees like children, you get a child-made work. They are not 13 years old.
  A leadership style in which any action requires approval creates a culture of thoughtlessness.
  What do you gain, for example, by prohibiting an employee from using social services. networks during work? Nothing at all. This time will not be magically converted to work. People will find some other way to get distracted.
  The point is not the number of hours spent at the desktop, but their productivity.

"Easy". This word is usually used to describe the work of other people. “You can easily do this, right?” But note: people rarely describe their own responsibilities as light.

Stop words: necessary, obligated, cannot, easy, only, single, fast.
  The recipe for disaster: “We need to immediately add this feature. We cannot start without it. This is just one small detail, so implementing it will be easy. You must get the job done quickly. ”

Urgent is poison.
  Avoid using “strong words” unless absolutely necessary - save them for truly emergency situations in which procrastination threatens with dire consequences.

Video about how to find time for your projects

Video about the use of restrictions

Video about why we do not work at work

37signals use the ROWE workflow approach - a system that focuses exclusively on results, rather than an 8-hour shift in the office. About.

The book of Jason Freide and David Heinemayer Hensson “Rework. Business without prejudice ”will tell you about, perhaps even simultaneously with the main employment. Also, this book will tell you about improving an existing business and your views on it. You will receive answers to questions about what should be the size of a successful company, how to plan and what exactly needs to be planned, as well as much more.

The uniqueness of the book lies in the fact that it is very easy to read, motivates, inspires, dispels doubts, expands boundaries, offers a lot of effective practical recommendations and turns over the well-established vision of business, which today so often hinders success. That is why the book “Rework. Business Without Prejudice ”instantly became a bestseller in the USA and helped to improve the business of both novice entrepreneurs and experienced businessmen.

About Jason Freide and David Hanyemeyer Hensson

Jason Fride and David Heinemeyer Hensson are two successful entrepreneurs who founded 37 Signals, a software development company, web application developer, and more. Initially, the company staff consisted of only 14 permanent employees. Today, the company exists under the name “Basecamp”, and the number of employees has increased to 32, but even this is phenomenal, given that more than 3 million people use the software created by the company.

In addition, Friday and Hensson maintain their own blog, Signal v. Noise, with more than 114 thousand subscribers, is also the author of two other bestsellers - Getting Real and Remote. An office is not required. ”

Summary of the book “Rework. Business without prejudice "

The book consists of an introduction, twelve chapters, conclusion and additional information blocks about 37 Signals and its products.

We will briefly talk about what the authors want to convey to the reader through their work.

Training

Currently, anyone can do business, because what was previously unavailable can now be easily adopted. You can even work with people living hundreds of miles from you.

Many experts can tell you that your ideas will not work in the real world, but the validity of this statement in practice is zero, which is confirmed by a company organized by the authors.

Success is exaggerated, and even studies conducted at the Harvard Business School have shown that businessmen who have already achieved success are likely to achieve it in new endeavors.

Of course, it’s good, but in essence this is only conjecture based on past experience. Planning is incompatible with improvisation. In many cases, it is necessary to act on the basis of circumstances.

Act!

For your work to be at the highest level, you must believe that your occupation is special, and that you yourself are part of something very, very important. Going to get down to business, on what is most important to you. Remember that the easiest and most effective way to create a first-class product or service is to create what you yourself would like to apply.

Always be guided by the fact that an idea will forever remain an idea if you do not take action. Waiting for the perfect time is also not worth it, because it will never come — better time — now. When you get started, remember as often as possible why you are doing what you are doing. The most successful businessmen always have their own point of view and philosophy, and not just some kind of product or service.

Evolve

To succeed, you must always be creative. Creating something, you can come up with a wonderful half of a product, rather than a low-quality whole.

Do not forget that in any new activity you have to face what you are able to do, what you want to do, and what you will be forced to do. And you need to start with what you will be forced to do.

It should be taken as seriously as possible, but you should not wait until the perfect option arrives. It is better to make a decision and, immediately, take action.

If you notice that something is not working, you do not need to throw all the resources to solve the problem. You need to do the opposite - to reduce resources. If you start to increase the budget or shift the deadlines, this process may never end.

Productivity

In the world of business you will find mountains of documents eating up your time, but to understand the essence of the process you need to move on to more real things. To understand if you are really doing what you need, just ask yourself the following questions:

• Why am I doing this?
• What problem am I solving?
• Am I adding value?
• Is there an easier way?
• What could I do instead?
• Is it really worth it?

Before diving into an activity, it is important to determine the true value of the upcoming business. If suddenly the activity was ineffective, the best option would be to stop it, even if a lot of effort has been invested.

Competitors

Your success will cause people to copy you, but you can protect yourself from hundreds of copycats - to make yourself part of your product. This means that you need to invest in your unique way of thinking in your product and add something that others can not offer.

To copy in business means to guarantee a failure, because the reporter does not understand the essence and the deep foundations of the replicated. Among other things, to overtake competitors, you can do no more than them, but less. And do not be shy about the fact that you do less. On the contrary, it should be flaunted and proud of it.

Evolution

No need to blindly believe that the client is always right, because the satisfaction of several ambitious customers is not worth it to make the product worse for others. Naturally, this does not mean that you should immediately say “no” to such customers - you just need to be honest and politely explain why you cannot make concessions.

Sharpening the product to the requirements of any one will immediately become the reason that the majority of consumers will begin to "cool down" to you. Make every effort to ensure that the maximum number of people can use your product.

Promotion

At the beginning of your journey, most likely, few people still know about you. Take advantage of this for yourself - you can safely make mistakes that no one will know about, change your strategy, make adjustments, etc.

All companies have their own customers, the happy companies have fans, and the most successful have their own audience, and it can play the role of a secret weapon. Audience attention does not need to be bought, because she herself will give it to you.

In the same case, when you need to take hold of someone's attention, refrain from following the example of the bulk and try to find something that can stand out. For example, first you can make a trial version of the product, and let people try the product for free. But you need to do this so that people always come back for the "supplement."

Recruitment

At the very beginning of your development, do everything yourself and do not hire any employees until you try to do everything yourself. This will allow you to learn the features of the work and understand what should be a good result. To accept a new employee is necessary only when you can’t do it yourself.

You only need to hire the best of the best, no matter how far they are from you. Those who love and tell others what to do should be most afraid, because they will pull the whole thing to the bottom.

Repair damage

If something goes wrong in your affairs, it will be much better if you make the public about your failures public before there is fertile ground for spreading rumors and distorted information. You yourself must become a source of bad news about your affairs.

You should also not think that you will be able to hide unpleasant information. Nowadays, any secrets are always revealed, and there is simply no sense in hiding.

Inspiration does not last forever

We all have ideas, but the difference between ideas and inspiration is that ideas can be eternal, but inspiration cannot. When you have a desire to do something, proceed immediately! When you are in a state of recovery, in just one day you can do what you normally would need two weeks to do. If to you, immediately begin to apply it in your activity.

Instead of a conclusion

Tips from Jason Freide and David Heinmeier Hensson's book “Rework. Business without prejudice ”will turn your mind about how you can approach the creation and conduct of a business, make your work more efficient, and the process itself is even more interesting and exciting. As the authors themselves say: you did not suspect that a business could be like that!