On Shipping

If there is one thing I struggle with, it’s finishing projects. It is a common curse among ‘creative-tinkerer’, such as developers. Most developers have a graveyard of ideas sitting somewhere between their Github account and the code/ folder.

However, some developers out seems to ship project all the time. They have the same 24 hours as we do, so there must a process to ship more.

Turns out there is. Shipping is a skill.

I want to improve that skill and learn to ship more.

For the next quarter, my goal will be to ship 3 projects, one a month. It does not matter if they are tiny projects, as long I ship them.

I could write about the 7 rules to ship a project like a pro.

But the truth is I have a shocking bad record for shipping project. So instead, I will set myself 3 simples rules to define a system to get to my goal.

15 minutes a day

“Participate to the completion of the project for a minimum of 15 minutes a day.”

It does not matter what I do, even if it’s jotting some notes for 15 minutes, as long as it is useful to the completion of the project. Fifteen minutes doesn’t sound much, but I deliberately made it easy. I am trying to create a habit, so I want to make sure the task is so small I can’t say no.

Define a MVP, not a MLP

Don’t let scope creep get in the way. Define a minimalistic project, and only work on getting there.

A MVP, is a minimum viable product. A MLP, is a minimum lovable product.

In other term, your MVP is not your finished product - it’s the bare minimum. It doesn’t even have to be ‘lovable’ - its role is just to do the job.

For example, I plan to build a simple mobile application to access my tasks from Taskwarrior. In this case, my MVP will be to Display the tasks with a search bar.

I could go down the rabbit hole of adding tasks, tags, recurrence, filtering…You name it. At this stage, all I want is to displays my todos on mobile - I won’t even be able to ‘tick’ them done.

If I feel like I want to improve the project, I will. Once shipped.

Enjoy

And that is probably the most important rule: find joy in the work. If you are not having fun, then reassess your process and make it enjoyable.

One way for me to have fun is to learn new things. Some say that you should stick to the tools you are familiar with if you wish to ship; and that’s probably true.

However, I plan to deliberately ignore this advice because I want to make it enjoyable.

Conclusion

3 simples rules to ship 3 simple project in the 3 months. Let’s see how we go.