Finally, remember that by saying “yes” – to projects, a course of action, or whatever – you are implicitly saying “no” to something else. Each time you make a commitment, you forfeit your chance to commit something else.
The quote is from Andy Grove’s High Output Management and talks to something that I talk about a lot: what a startup does.
There are many ways of focusing, and some of my favorite examples are Apple’s thousand no’s in their design philosophy, and Facebook’s VP Growth Alex Schultz’ Northern Star. Although somewhat different, both emphasize the importance of removing distractions and unnecessary activities.
I believe that no matter how many people you employ, a few weeks in everyone will be just as busy as before the staff increase. There’s always more to be done, more directions to go, more options to be explored, and if you have the resources to do so – you probably will. Unless you focus on focusing, meaning that you say no to some opportunities knowing that it implicitly means doing less of something that might be more valuable. And this is even harder as you are scaling/growing.
But probably even more dangerous is overanalyzing different options, better described through the brilliant XCKD below 🙂
