

100 day goals - jaf12duke
http://blog.42floors.com/100-day-goals/#.UlghiGRKnCY

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drags
This post boils down to one statement: "every 100 days we have a 20-day-long
crunch time". I'm all for getting things done, but scheduling arbitrary crunch
times is a great way to wear the team down until people quit.

~~~
LargeWu
Agreed. This sort of advice is great if you're the founder/owner, because
you're the one standing to get rich when somebody comes in with a buyout
offer.

If you're an employee at such a shop, though, this is a sucker's bet. Most
likely your hard work is paid off with a bunch of feel-good bullshit about how
you're changing the world, and the expectations that you'll do it all again in
three months.

Having a crunch time (especially scheduled) is a tacit admission that you are
not, in fact, reducing scope properly.

~~~
justin_vanw
Startups are machines for learning. This isn't limited to learning the market
and finding business fit and reproducibility, it also applies to all the
participants, whether they are founders or employees. No corporate job is
going to let you become a DBA and a Frontend Developer and a Backend Developer
and a Product Manager all at once, in a production environment, with no safety
net. There is no other place where you can learn at that depth, and there is
no other place you can learn at that rate.

There is also something to be said for the experience of personally
identifying with a goal, no matter what that goal is. The other people at your
startup will quickly become your best friends (sure, maybe that's because you
are spending all your time with them at the expense of your other friends).
You work together, eat together, play together. The level of camaraderie and
sense of membership that develops can only be compared to military service
(I've done both, and it is very similar).

If you are lazy, or you don't want to sacrifice in exchange for an amazing
experience where you will learn and grow more than you ever could anywhere
else, then you shouldn't be working for a startup. There are plenty of big
companies that will pay you a decent salary and let you stagnate, work 10-4,
never expect or require of you any growth, and let you phone it in until you
eventually die. Good luck whichever way you decide to go!

~~~
LargeWu
All I can say is, good luck with that attitude when you get married and have a
family. Your perspective on what is important in life will completely change.

Believe it or not, you can be serious about your career without sacrificing
your personal life.

~~~
justin_vanw
I have been married for over 10 years.

I have 2 children.

Would you like to continue to chastise me from a position of authority on the
subject?

~~~
triplesec
You both seem to be guilty of universalising your own work values and
denigrating the choices of others as either "lazy and don't want to learn and
grow" or "too immaturely self-oriented!" Take it from the Bard: "There are
more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your
philosophy"

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jonstjohn
I recently did a challenge of 100 days of commits to side projects and I'm now
at day 96. I think this was awesome for me, as it kept me really focused on my
projects, even if some days I had only small commits.

I think my next challenge might be even more focused and look to launch one of
my prototype projects in a specific amount of time. This will force me to
focus and launch something, even if it isn't perfect.

~~~
kiba
My constraint is a bit different. All I have to do is work more than last
week's day. For example, if I achieve for Monday 3.01 hours. All I have to do
for this week Monday is to achieve 3.02 hours. It has gradually pushed me from
6 weeks ago of 23 hours to 30 hours this week.

Once I reach my goal of 30 hours a work week, my goal is to merely maintain
the momentum and shift most of my workload 2-3 days so I am not working all
week all the time. (Although, some activities must be done everday, such as
studying)

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mkenyon
What tool are you using to measure this?

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kiba
An online time tracking tool I wrote.

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super-serial
Anyone else go to Amazon thinking 'hmmm, maybe I'll buy a 100 day goal
calendar, it's probably only $5.'

The one he has on his wall is _$42.50 on Amazon_... I think I'll print out 100
pages and tape them to my wall.

~~~
carlsednaoui
Ha, my thoughts exactly! Here's a downloadable PDF in case you're interested:
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34726262/100%20Day%20Goa...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34726262/100%20Day%20Goal.pdf)

~~~
justin_vanw
Awesome!

I'm selling them at cost here:
[http://www.ebay.com/itm/321226528853](http://www.ebay.com/itm/321226528853)

I might change the font a bit before shipping these out though.

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iambateman
A 100 day challenge doesn't make sense for an established company (why would
you do that to yourself?)

But for a startup, it makes total sense. You're moving quickly, and 100 days
is enough time to make substantial progress while keeping yourself accountable
to actually shipping. I think it sounds like a perfectly viable strategy.
Definitely not for everyone.

I took his advice to heart and today is day 1 of my 100 day challenge
(yesterday was day 0): [http://iambateman.com/today-is-launch-
day/](http://iambateman.com/today-is-launch-day/)

~~~
visakanv
nice

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arh68
There seems to be something deeply effective about setting arbitrary
constraints. Obvious examples abound: haiku, twitter, 80-char code,
screenplays in fixed-width Courier, 25-minute pomodoro, text-only man pages.
Also, the metronome of practicing music (cadenzas don't count), the fixed 8
hour workday, the 12-tone music temperament..

I've wondered what a piece of software could look like with each
function/codeblock written on 1 index card each. Linus seems to prefer one-
page functions for C, but I like the extreme of the index card.

~~~
ecopoesis
My first CS teacher in high school required index-card size functions
(actually procedures because it was Pascal). It's helped me immensely over the
year, because those 5-10 line functions end up growing into 100 line behemoths
as features get added.

Starting with smaller bits gives you a longer mean-time between refactorings.

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jonhmchan
This is how I've gotten around my own productivity faults: not with a
particular arbitrary date, but by publicly promising to a point of no return.
It's incredible how much I've been able to do by setting expectations without
too much estimation. By promising what I want to accomplish rather than what I
think I am capable of accomplishing, it tends to push me to be more productive
than I thought possible.

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carlsednaoui
I work at Thinkful ([http://www.thinkful.com](http://www.thinkful.com)) - we
help people learn to code through coding projects and mentorship.

Thinking about using this with my team. I made a PDF so we can print it,
thought you gals and guys might be interested too:
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34726262/100%20Day%20Goa...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34726262/100%20Day%20Goal.pdf)

Edit: Here is a similar option available at Amazon, it's $42
([http://www.amazon.com/Countdown-
Calendar/dp/B004VP6XBK](http://www.amazon.com/Countdown-
Calendar/dp/B004VP6XBK))

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jtbigwoo
I'm of two minds on this.

On one hand, making deadlines as short as possible is a great idea. It's too
easy with one-year or two-year projects to six months arguing about
infrastructure, requirements, and standards and end up delivering late or not
at all. Every project should be required to deliver _some_ value in the first
couple months.

On the other hand, three or four twenty-day crunch times every year is not
sustainable. Unless they're planning a Logan's Run-style turnover of their
current team.

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justin_vanw
Since they are like $40 on Amazon, I'm selling them here:
[http://www.ebay.com/itm/321226528853](http://www.ebay.com/itm/321226528853)

I think it will cost about $7 to print it and $5 to ship it (free shipping is
included, internationally as well I believe) so this is about what I expect my
cost to be.

~~~
triplesec
Alternatively, a ream of paper and a printer works wonders

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mchristoff
100 day goals are pretty effective when you make the right goals. They are
pretty dangerous if you're aiming the wrong direction.

~~~
visakanv
I've spent a lot more than 100 days listlessly wandering around with no
direction, and I think 10 instances of 100 days aiming in deliberately wrong
directions would've been more interesting, and I'd have learned more.

(Exception is if I got into horrible debt or did/received some sort of lasting
damage).

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dools
"how fast it took" does not parse.

