Today I was reading the book Email Storyselling by Jim Hamilton. In it he suggests writing down your 10 commandments. I’ve actually been exploring these over the past few weeks, so they were fresh on my mind. I had a conversation with an AI chat bot to help me narrow and focus the list. Here’s my list, as of right now.
Make things. Making something real teaches you what thinking and planning cannot.
Keep it simple. Complexity has a cost. Simple things are easier to understand, maintain, change, and finish.
Ship small. Build the smallest interesting version. Put it into the world. Learn what happens.
Curiosity is reason enough. “I wonder if I can…” is a perfectly good reason to make something. It doesn’t need a business case.
Constraints are a feature. Limited time, tiny computers, small budgets, and deliberately narrow scope force decisions. They can produce better and more interesting work.
Own your tools. Prefer things you can understand, control, modify, repair, host, or replace. Dependency has a cost too.
Old ideas are still good ideas. Progress doesn’t make every old idea obsolete. Sometimes the best new thing is an old idea made possible again with new tools.
Respect the user. Don’t track people because you can. Don’t bury them in complexity. Don’t waste their bandwidth or attention. Software should serve its user.
Make small bets. I’d rather make ten small attempts than spend years betting everything on one grand plan. Small bets make experimentation cheap.
The point is the life around the work. Making things should enrich your life, not consume it. The projects are part of a larger life of learning, family, curiosity, and experience.
(formrobin.com)