Always. Be. Shipping

PG say always be “producing”.

Coffee is for closers.

I am thinking about commenting on this :open_mouth:

you are right … i have no f***ing time to comment this … i have to f***ing do it now ! :wink:

Great post!
I know that my biggest problem is procrastination. That is the one and only reason why I have so many back-burner projects.

I need to learn to “Do it f***ing now”, instead of “Do it f***ing next week”, which results in yet another “Do it f***ing next week”… it’s a vicious cycle.

“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what the right things are to do.”

Some people would suggest that “anything” is the right thing to do. This article reminds me of Graham’s position on startups … one such snippet (of many):

For example, in the first couple months a startup may completely redefine their idea. So seed investors usually care less about the idea than the people.

And that’s really the point, isn’t it? Ideas are a commodity. Everybody has an idea – heck, everybody has ten ideas. But they aren’t any good to anybody without action. And it’s the people who take action who make the million bucks. Making seven figures is mostly about drive and luck, not ideas.

I remember a long time ago, I was sitting in at the computer lab at school right when the web started out. I was querying the domain registar and a WHOLE bunch of interesting domain names were available - buy.com, maybe several others. I considered registering some of them.

There WAS a voice in my mind shouting do it f***** now! but as a broke ass student, the several hundred dollar registration fee dissuaded me.

So now I’m no longer a broke ass student - I’m a broke ass VB coder!

I wonder if you consider yourself, babbling in a web blog to be creating, or “just another pundit the world doesn’t need”

This post just adds more to the articles Ive read the last few days about developing. The most interesting one was by the scientific ninja:
He stated that it does not matter if your first attempt to write something is completely right. You just write a little something that works well for the current problem, and then you extend it. If it doesnt work anymore, you go into refactoring the thing until it works for the new problems.

It is quite a turnaround from what they tell you at universities like plan, a non-planned software wont work and stuff, but in fact, atm I just get better results just doing the damn thing and looking for problems if the product wants the problems instead of the other way around. :slight_smile:

Thus, yes, I can only agree to that entry, grab your your coding toolbox left and your refactoring toolbox right and just build a thingie until it breaks.

I built a business model and started to build the software product that fit it, but like so many developers with dreams of doing something in their spare time; realities of job of life ate that up.

Flash forward a year or so and I re-read “Choke” a book by Chuck Palahniuk, which is now consequently being made into a movie. In it is a character who starts bringing rocks home, cleaning them, and building this rock wall. He basically does not have a reason or overall goal other than just building something. That action, in of itself, is really positive.

For me that became my Do it F***ing Now. While I would never approach a work project in that manner, I think when it comes to building good software, sometimes the best idea is to just do it. Just build that “rock wall”, so to speak, because its better than not doing it.

I don’t really remember where I got it from, but this simple three point list always worked quite well for me:

  1. Do it.
  2. Do it right.
  3. Do it right now.

I actually contemplated this last year at school and I came up with the phrase ‘Just sit down and do it,’ to inspire myself to just sit down in the chair and write code. Whenever I am thinking I tend to get out of my chair and walk around/fidget, so sitting down and doing it would be the best thing for me.

A friend and I were working on a project, and would just keep telling him to sit down and do it no matter what the problem was. It became a joke between us, but an effective one.
Now I use the phrase for all sorts of things, like exercising, etc.

This reminds me of the song “Dorothy at 40” by the indie rock band Cursive.

“Dreams are all you have.
Dreams have held you back.
Dreamers never live, only dream of it.”

I wonder if you consider yourself, babbling in a web blog to be creating, or "just another pundit the world doesn’t need

That’s the very reason I wrote this post.

To developers:
Alway Be Closing == Always Be Shipping

Jeff, at least you’re writing interesting articles. That’s doing something.

I have trouble kicking the habit of always reading, reading more, reading about another new thing, and not even writing a blog about it, let alone actually doing something with it. And I’m not quite alone, I think.

I remember an article saying that blog comments should be turned off. I think I need to turn off the blogs themselves :slight_smile:

The problem with “just doing it” is some people are too attatched to what they build. Getting over inertia is great but you need to realize that your first few attempts are going to be crap. You can’t be afraid to throw it away the first few times you “do it”.

Sounds simmilar to the worse advice i was ever given as a jr programmer:

“You can do it right or you can get it done. Get it done.”

That reminds me of Martin Luther King Jr.:

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

Great article!!! Do it now or f**k it! :wink: