jan.fyi

Working in public

There's this concept of "building in public" – usually entrepreneurs and founders sharing their business journey online, so that others can follow, hopefully, their journey towards success and what it entails.

I'm neither an entrepreneur nor a founder, but I've been having success with "working" in public: just share stuff you're working on early, and openly talk about your ideas and projects.

What this enables:

  1. You deliver. That file you need to hand in in a week? Do a draft zero, and send people links to it. There's no room for perfectionism or procrastination anymore.
  2. You get feedback early. Your project surely is great as is, but what if someone suggests a valid improvement, or points out a flaw that you haven't thought of. Isn't it better to learn about these sooner rather than later?
  3. Your ideas evolve. Discussing ideas means new inputs which can steer your thinking into new directions.
  4. You make your manager happy, for they see progress quickly and can help you with new ideas earlier. Alternatively, you build trust with your reports, who see what their manager is working on and can get involved and help earlier.
  5. You inspire others. Seeing ideas come to life and people working on new things sparks other ideas and other people working on other new things.

If you fear being judged, perhaps you shouldn't be spending energy on that thing of yours in the first place. And if you fear others stealing your ideas, your ideas might not be good or unique enough, and you need to push yourself to evolve them further.

So go ahead and talk to someone about that project of yours that you cannot get off the ground. Send the unfinished document to your colleague for an early review. Run the process differently the next time you have to. Show someone how you're using your todo app or your improved but still messy note taking system. Brag about that cool thing you've discovered on your next 1-on-1. Put that difficult topic on the next meeting's agenda. Tell someone about that weird hobby you've been thinking of. Publish that imperfect post.