Principles of doing business from the creators of Basecamp.
freelancers and independent specialists often behave in exactly the same way.
In their first book Rework changsha mobile phone numbers database Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson talked about a new way to work effectively and shared ideas for creating a “calm” company with an ideal culture. Their approach aims to combat the chaos, anxiety and stress that make everyday life and work difficult for many people. The book I Have a Boiler at Work. Reject Chaos and Anxiety – Achieve Success develops this theory: written in the format of a guide for the next generation of entrepreneurs, it collects the practical experience of the authors and illustrates it with inspiring examples from the business world. Fried and Hansson do not tell you what to do – they talk about what they did themselves and how their experience can be helpful in businesses of a different scale and in other industries. We have selected seven of the most interesting ideas from the book I Have a Boiler at Work – for business owners, managers and professionals.
#1 Stop the drudgery
If your life feels like an endless race, it’s time to slow down. Life is more than just working 24/7 – don’t listen to those who try to convince you otherwise. After 14 hours of work, you probably won’t come up with a brilliant idea – creativity, progress and creative impulse are not subject to brute force. British naturalist Charles Darwin wrote his 19 books, including The Origin of Species , while working 4.5 hours a day. Entrepreneurship or work shouldn’t be a fight for survival – it’s not about crazy races with exploding cars, it’s about building a house brick by brick. Put in all your effort at work – but no more. You can have time to play with your children and still achieve professional success. Spend more time with your loved ones, go for walks, read, watch silly comedies, cook. Enjoy your life.
#2. Three is company
At Basecamp, almost all projects are handled by teams of three. The company has a rule: If a project requires more work than three people can handle, it should be split into two projects. The same goes for most meetings, phone calls, and conference calls.
Three is the magic number. It’s an odd number the holidays are coming! seven tips for creating an effective social media strategy so people don’t pair up. Three is enough to get something done, but not enough to mess something up. The problem with a four-person team is that it almost always needs a fifth person to manage it. A five-person team is too big to be effective. A smaller team can accomplish more because most improvements are made in small increments. A large team simply can’t handle them.
#3. Eight is enough, forty is plenty
According to Fried and Hansson, 40 hours a week is enough to work well on your product and do all the most important tasks. If you are not able to do all the tasks on your list during this time phone database learn to choose the most important ones. In the authors’ experience, not all tasks that employees consider absolutely necessary are really so. Everyone at Basecamp works according to this idea: anything that is not done by Friday at 5:00 p.m. is postponed until 9:00 a.m. on Monday. After you give up all unnecessary duties, only the most important ones will remain – you will definitely deal with them in 40 hours.
#4. Quality of one hour
All these sections will eventually add up to one hour, but their quality will be completely different. Pay attention to how your workday goes: how many “full” hours do you actually have, what or who is keeping you from focusing on your tasks, how many things do you do in an hour? And the whole day?
#5. Be an example to others
It will be hard to explain to your employees all the benefits of standard working hours, quality rest and a healthy lifestyle if – as their manager – you do the opposite.
Take the example of a boss who sleeps four hours a day, is always the first to arrive at the office, has four meetings before breakfast, and leaves work after midnight. Some might think – what a hero! According to Fried and Hansson, if the only example you can give your clients is self-torture, you need to do something about it, and fast.
Work is not a battlefield. The fate of businesses does not depend on who is the last to leave the conference room or who completes the task in the shortest time. Workaholism is an infectious disease. You cannot stop its spread if you are the source of infection. It is better to infect everyone with peace.
#6. Calendar Tetris
In the authors’ experience, employee calendars available to everyone are one of the most destructive tools at work. Access to any calendar and the ability to send meeting invitations encourages dividing everyone’s time into 30-minute segments, marked in different colors on the calendars. If managing someone’s time seems as simple as entering a meeting in the calendar, most employees will use it.
It shouldn’t be like this. Calendar tetris is often justified by the words “it’s just an invitation!”, but no conscientious employee will ignore it. If you wouldn’t take up organizing a meeting without an external stimulus, it most likely is not necessary. Yes, almost any meeting can be replaced by email.