Jonathan Endicott: Working Principles

Seven working rules Jonathan Endicott uses for building businesses and creative work.

1. Start before you feel ready. Confidence follows action. Shrink the first step until it is easy to take today.
2. Respect the boring middle. Most projects die after the novelty fades. Fixed routines and small daily units carry them through.
3. Discipline is a system. Decide once, design the environment, and keep small promises to yourself.
4. Evidence over opinion. Find the assumption that would hurt most if wrong and test it cheaply first.
5. Reversible fast, irreversible slow. Move quickly on decisions you can undo; slow down on the ones you cannot.
6. Distribution is part of the product. Where customers gather and why they would tell a friend are design questions.
7. Subtract before you add. Every new feature, product or channel costs attention. Remove first.

Each rule is explored at length in the Jonathan Endicott essays, and in the context of business on Jonathan Endicott on entrepreneurship.