Quotes from Jason Fried

But the thing is, there's not more work to be done all of a sudden. The problem is that there's hardly any uninterrupted, dedicated time to do it.

You can only work exactly the same way, at the same pace, doing the same work for so long before monotony bites.

Focus on reaping the great benefits and mitigating the drawbacks

Fuck that. People should be missing out! Most people should miss out on most things most of the time. That's what we try to encourage at Basecamp. JOMO! The joy of missing out.

Much corporate anxiety comes from the realization that the company has been doing the wrong thing, but it's too late to change direction because of the "Plan." "We've got to see it through!" Seeing a bad idea through just because at one point it sounded like a good idea is a tragic waste of energy and talent.

The thing is, most people just don't enjoy haggling, period.

The technology is here; it's never been easier to communicate and collaborate with people anywhere, any time. But that still leaves a fundamental people problem. The missing upgrade is for the human mind.

You don't create a culture. It happens. This is why new companies don't have a culture. Culture is the by-product of consistent behavior.

It's almost impossible to work on something and not be tempted to chase all the exciting new what-if and we-could-also ideas that come up. There's always one more thing it could do, one more improvement it should have. But if you actually want to make progress, you have to narrow as you go.

Set out to do good work. Set out to be fair in your dealings with customers, employees, and reality. Leave a lasting impression with the people you touch and worry less (or not at all!) about changing the world. Chances are, you won't, and if you do, it's not going to be because you said you would.

It begins with this idea: Your company is a product. Yes, the things you make are products (or services), but your company is the thing that makes those things. That's why your company should be your best product.

You can't credibly promote the virtues of reasonable hours, plentiful rest, and a healthy lifestyle to employees if you're doing the opposite as the boss.

You just can't bring your A game to every situation. Knowing when to embrace Good Enough is what gives you the opportunity to be truly excellent when you need to be.

If you spend 20 percent each on getting five things to 80 percent, well, then, you've done five things!

The bottom line is that you shouldn't hire people you don't trust, or work for bosses who don't trust you. If you're not trusted to work remotely, why are you trusted to do anything at all? If you're held in such low regard, why are you able to talk to customers, write copy for an ad, design the next product, assess insurance claims, or do tax returns?

Easy. Easy is a word that's used to describe other people's jobs. "That should be easy for you to do, right?" But notice how rarely people describe their own tasks as easy. For you, it's "Let me look into it"—but for others, it's "Get it done.

As Sir Richard Branson commented in his ode to working remotely: "To successfully work with other people, you have to trust each other. A big part of this is trusting people to get their work done wherever they are, without supervision."fn3

The further away you are from something, the fuzzier it becomes.

Change makes things worse all the time. It's easier to fuck up something that's working well than it is to genuinely improve it. But we commonly delude ourselves into thinking that more time, more investment, more attention is always going to win.

The future is a major abstraction, riddled with a million vibrating variables you can't control. The best information you'll ever have about a decision is at the moment of execution.

If you're pitching your boss to let you work from home a few days a week, a common rebuff is how envious your coworkers would be if you were granted this special privilege. Why, it simply wouldn't be fair! We all need to be equally, miserably unproductive at the office and suffer in unity!

Just like work expands to fill the time available, work expands to fill the team available. Small, short projects quickly become big, long projects when too many people are there to work on them.

Knowing when to embrace Good Enough is what gives you the opportunity to be truly excellent when you need to be.

Mark Twain nailed it: "Comparison is the death of joy." We're with Mark.