Rework = Buy it!

I’ve been hearing about this book for ages and at least 10 people I know have nudged me to say I’d really get something out of it, but until now I didn’t realize the impact. So, so glad I read it.  Now, I’m just like those people…wanting to spread the word to everyone I know – buy this book!

Not only is this book super easy to read, fun, imaginative, and smart…it gets down to earth about real life, business, and making decisions.  Its such a breath of fresh air because you go through life and work with a pretty persistent/ingrained outlook on growth, ambition, moving up, selling good products, building a business plan, timing, money, constraints, competition, enthusiasm, productivity, progress, and the list goes on and on. 

What I learned while reading this book is that sometimes the big business approach isn’t best.  You’ve got to embrace ‘you’ and what that means is going to be different to everybody.  If your product is simple and thats what makes it great, embrace simplicity.  If your business works well with with 6 employees at the table, why go global?  If your plan isn’t perfect in the beginning, then keep working at it, its OK not to be perfect at launch.  Be your self and be upfront about your shortcomings, you may not seem as professional but you will seem a lot more genuine.  People don’t like spam, so don’t sell crap, sell something you believe in.

There are so many simple lessons to be learned.  One of my absolute favorites is “Interruption is the Enemy of Productivity” – this one is so pertinent to my current job – I work on many projects a month in which I need to switch gears all the time, sometimes 10 times in one day…and this is totally counter-productive to actually getting work done.  In order to do work productively I need a long stretch of alone time – without instant messages, email, meetings or phone calls to distract me.

Design and creativity are not task-oriented roles to play most of the time.  Usually you just need to get in the zone to make the magic happen.  I guess that means  I’m going to have to wave my magic wand and declare quiet time zones for Shellie from now on.  I’ll keep you posted on the progress! ;)