The Side Project Report.pdf

REPORT
SIDE PROJECT
T H E
Observation
and Enquiry
ISSN
2398
3256
$
20
US
£1
2
UK

Foreword
Side projects are important because they make starting easier.
You haven’t bet the house yet.You haven’t quit your job to make it happen.
Your chances of eating tonight remain strong.

What you’ve created is an ecosystem that allows your idea to grow far away
from the real world.A world that may not be quite ready for it.
So you can experiment.You can iterate.You can test.You can pivot.You can
stick at it for years without ever launching.And still eat.
That safe ecosystem acts like the pair of stabilisers you use when you are
learning to ride a bike. But there comes a time when you have to take them
off.And hope to hell you don’t fall.
The Side Project Report is here to help you on that journey.
Most reports share one considered opinion, but ours takes a global viewpoint.
We sought the opinions of thought-leaders and pioneering businesses from
around the planet.We conductedTwitter polls.We sent out questionnaires.
We sat down with people who have made their side project happen.
And now we’re handing it to you.
Ideas change things.
But ideas by themselves change nothing. So you have 2 options.To either talk
about the change you are going to make or to stop talking.
And start.
David Hieatt

The Side Project Report
Why hasn't your side project
launched?
Money
Team
Time
Twitter poll
5%
69%
26%

When it comes to your side project,
what are you lacking?
74%
Motivation
Inspiration
Innovation
Twitter poll
12%
14%
Ph.
Unsplash
/
Luke
Chesser

Why would you start a side project today?
2%
To be the boss
To learn something new
To explore a passion
To make some money
Twitter poll
24%
60%
14%
Mat
Arney/Hailer

Contents
INTRODUCTION
DATA
GALACTICOS
BEHAVIOUR DESIGN
TIME
MONEY
TEAMS
GOOD COMPANY
GET IT DONE
RESOURCES
11
15
25
59
75
87
93
109
139
154

Introduction
11
The first stage of doing is
deciding.Then committing.
Commit hard.
But deciding isn’t doing.
Committing isn’t doing.
Doing is doing.
By all means, write up your idea.
Talk it up too. Get buy-in. Get
amped. Get ready.
But on no account be
unaccountable. (If only to
yourself.)
Look at it. Let it eat at you,
motivate you, inspire you, fill you
with fear and joy.Though you’ll
find that they won’t always be in
equal measure.
Then do. Do what you need to get
done.
Anything else is just thinking
about it, talking about it, planning
it, playing at it.
Deciding isn’t doing.
Making to-do lists longer than
you are tall isn’t doing.Telling
people what you’re going to do
isn’t doing.
Doing is doing.
Show up every single day til it’s
done.Then show up some more
just to be sure.
Surprise your enemies. Delight
your allies. But most of all, win
the war with yourself.
This may mean getting
comfortable with discomfort.
This may mean discovering
awkward truths about yourself.
But it may also mean you get to
live the life of your dreams.
And don’t let perfection be the
enemy of good, asVoltaire said.
Or, more pithily,‘Feck perfuction’,
asVictore said.
You might get lucky.Your project
might turn out to be as simple as
a walk in the park. But most likely,
it will be as tricky as catching
lightning in a jar.
Don’t let that deflect, deter or
discourage you.
Only one person can do what you
want to do.
Only one person’s opinions and,
more importantly, actions matter.
We think you know who that is.
Never not do.

12
'LIVEINTHE
FUTURE

13
THENBUILD
WHAT'S
MISSING.'
–PAUL GRAHAM
Y COMBINATOR
Ph.
Unsplash
/
Thomas
Habr

Emer
Tumilty
14

We asked 100 people to tell us a bit more about their experience with side
projects.The point was to find out what we didn’t already know.There
were no word limits, no specific requirements and no scripted answers.
Just people telling us about their lives through open-ended questions.
What we found was interesting.We also discovered that our readers are
pretty damn witty.As always, we’re not pretending to be experts.We just
see the value in 100 ordinary people.
DATA

16
Yes 83%
Yes 83%
All by my lonesome 54%
Yes 50%
N/A 43%
No 47%
Yes 53%
Several 9%
I have one teammate 19%
No 44%
Yes 29%
Yes 38%
No 38%
Sort of 5%
With a team 17%
I don't know 6%
No 11%
Not right now, but it might 11%
No, but I have since starting it 5%
Yes, but now it's my main focus 2%
A bit of both 7% Sort of 10%
I don't know yet 2%
I still am 4%
Not currently, but I did 1%
All by my lonesome but I wish I had a team 3% I don't know 7%
It will 2%
Do you have any active side projects?
Are you working on this all by your
lonesome or with a team?
Do you have ambitions to turn your side
project into your main form of income?
If you are employed, does your employer
encourage side projects?
Does your side project require any
outside funding?
Did you sit on your idea before acting on it?

Data
17
When do you find
the time to work on
your side project(s)?
What gets in the way of
developing your project(s)?
E
v
e
n
i
n
g
s
4
2
%
W
e
e
k
e
n
d
s
4
2
%
1
9
%
A
n
y
s
p
a
r
e
t
i
m
e
9%
One day a week
7% Mornings
7% At work
5% I don’t
5%
Holidays
4
%
L
u
n
c
h
b
r
e
a
k
s
4
%
B
e
t
w
e
e
n
c
l
i
e
n
t
w
o
r
k
3
%
W
h
i
l
e
c
o
m
m
u
t
i
n
g
3
%
N
o
t
v
e
r
y
o
f
t
e
n
3
%
2
4
/
7
2%
On
e
ho
ur
a
da
y
Time 67%
M
o
n
e
y
3
2
%
2
4
%
F
e
a
r
24%
Lack of confidence
8% Full-time work
7% Life
6% Other projects/ideas
6%
Energy
6%
Lack
of connections/
resources
5
%
L
a
c
k
o
f
f
o
c
u
s
4
%
L
a
c
k
o
f
s
u
p
p
o
r
t
4
%
L
a
c
k
o
f
m
o
t
i
v
a
t
i
o
n
4
%
L
a
c
k
o
f
r
e
q
u
ir
e
d
s
k
il
ls
3
%
F
a
m
il
y
3%
Lac
k
of
ide
as
1%
Perfectionism
(These questions
accepted multiple
answers)

18
The 'business' side of things
Visibility/marketing
Planning
The creative
side of things
Continously
kicking myself
in the ass
The techy things
I just need a pep talk
Networking
Finding a mentor
Brainstorming/feedback
Pitching
and
presenting
18%
17% 6%
7%
6%
4%
4%
4%
4%
18%
12%
W HAT D O YO U FE E L YO U NEED HEL P WIT H
RE GA RD ING YO UR SIDE P ROJECT (S )?

Data
19
2-4 years
1 year 5-7 years 8-10 years
7-11
months
1-6 months
29%
6%
4%
27%
16% 13%
Less than
a month
A long time
3%
2%
HOW LO NG HAV E YO U B EEN WORKING
O N YO UR MA IN SIDE P ROJECT ?

20
W HY D ID YO U START
YO UR SID E PROJECT ?
W HY IS IT WORT H
YO UR TIM E?
Passion
It had to exist
Creative outlet/alternative to work
Self-development
Curiosity
For fun
To be my own boss
Money
Team
I had the time
ADHD
My mate dared me
It's extremely personal
It's fun
It helps other people
It's a chance for me to be creative
I'm proud of it
I'm learning
It connects me to interesting people
It could work
Maybe it's not
I like risk
(These questions accepted multiple answers)
26%
25%
19%
11%
10%
10%
7%
7%
6%
2%
2%
1%
26%
16%
16%
14%
8%
8%
7%
7%
4%
2%

Data
21
IF YO U CO ULD MA GICA LLY HAVE ONE T HING
THAT WO ULD MA K E YO UR S IDE P ROJECT
A SUCCE SS, W HAT WOUL D IT B E?
W HAT PIE CE O F A DV ICE WOUL D Y OU GIVE
YO UR PAST SE LF RE GARDING Y OUR
PRO JE CT(S)?
Honourable mentions:
10,000 more followers on Twitter and/or Medium.
A big ol' grant.
A mob of people talking me up all the time.
Someone to do all the dirty work.
No more bills. Ever.
Chocolate.
An 'I don't give a fuck' attitude.
Another me.
Honourable mentions:
Don't sweat the small stuff.
Write down every idea.
Make time.
Believe in it.
Start before you're ready.
Remember that failure is feedback.
Keep going.
Do little bits more often.
Just fucking get on with it.

Mat
Arney/Hailer
22

NUMBE RS
OF MIL L ENNIAL S B EL IEVE T HAT
IT ’ S IM P ORTANT TO HAVE A S IDE
P ROJECT T HAT COUL D B ECOME
A DIFFERENT CAREER
OF S OCIAL MEDIA US ERS FEEL
INS P IRED TO FIND T HEIR OWN
SIDE P ROJECT AFT ER S EEING T HE
S UCCESS OF OT HERS
78%
52%
23
- Generation Innovation Study, MTV
- PeoplePerHour (UK) & Freelancers
Union Research (US)
- NBN Research
- NBN Research
OF THE UK A ND US
WO RK FO RCE
WILL BE FRE E L A NCE RS
BY 2020
OF AUSTRA LIA NS
ARE LOOKING FO R FULFILME NT
OUTSID E O F WO RK
5O%
8O%

XX
Meet the side project standouts.The ones who believe that it’s
better to be a pirate than to join the navy.The ones with the
ability to swash when others buckle.The ones with raw talent and
bloody-mindedness.You know who they are.The common thread
that weaves all these side project superstars together is simple.
They do what they love, even on the days they
hate it. Blinkers off, phasers to stun.
GALACTICOS

Stewart Butterfield,
CEO and co-founder
of Slack.

Stewart Butterfield is a bit of
a serial side project merchant,
not to mention a dab hand at
providing quotable headlines.
But let’s take a step back to
2004, to when Stewart ran a
gaming company called Ludicorp.
A gaming company that was
running out of cash and seriously
considering selling the furniture
to make payroll.
Their main product was called
Game NeverEnding (GNE), and
it’s fair to say it wasn’t a runaway
success. However, part of the
game-playing experience was a
side project they’d been working
on: an embedded photo-sharing
tool that contributed to the wider
game.
Butterfield and his team saw
that if they could focus on the
popularity of this photography
aspect, and maybe pivot into
something new, it could be their
get-out-of-jail-free card.
And so it proved to be.The side
event became the main event.
They extracted the killer feature
and launched Flickr in 2004.
Becoming one of the earliest and
brightest iterations of the nascent
web 2.0 revolution.
(Keep in mind kids, social media
and online sharing still wasn’t a
‘thing’ in those days.)
A little over a year later, Flickr was
acquired byYahoo and became
one of its most high-profile and
respected acquisitions.
But the best was yet to come.And
history was about to repeat itself.
Somewhere, waiting in the future
was Slack.To get there, Stewart
just had to jump through a few
more hoops. (Did someone say
resilience?)
Cut to 2008.
For various reasons—which
you can google another time—
Stewart pennedYahoo a legendary
resignation note and returned
to his gaming roots. He formed
the companyTiny Speck, which
created a game called Glitch—
a non-violent MMOG.
Glitch had some of the elements
of Farmville and Minecraft, and
was described as ‘Monty Python
crossed with Dr Seuss on acid’.
Unfortunately, Glitch the game
became Glitch the self-fulfilling
prophesy. It tanked.
But just like GNE years before,
something buried within Glitch
was about to take the company
to a whole new level.This time it
was a messaging tool—originally
written to serve the internal team,
streamline communication and
keep everybody in the loop.
When Glitch went away, Slack
stayed around.
In a masterful pivot, Stewart
launched Slack as a global
cloud-based team messaging
collaboration tool.And to this
day, it is the fastest growing
B2B application in history, not
to mention the fastest company
ever to receive a billion-dollar
valuation.
Slack stands for ‘Searchable Log of
All Conversation and Knowledge’,
which we can only assume is a
firmly tongue-in-cheek reference.
It is used by over 4 million active
users each day, and is currently
valued at around £4 billion.
That’s a big number, but if you
want a small one, and an insight
into Slack’s biggest competitor,
check this out. In the first 4 years
Life is too
short to do
mediocre
work, and
it’s definitely
too short to
build shitty
things.
‘
’
Galacticos / Slack
27
SL ACK
Stewart Butterfield,
CNN Interview, 2007
‘We started the company that
produced Flickr to build an online
game.Flickrwasasideproject.Itgot
more popular and then it took over
the whole company but it certainly
wasn’t what we intended to do.’

of the company, the internal
employee mailing list received
a sum total of about 50 emails.
Period.
Since Stewart has openly stated
that email is the ‘cockroach of the
internet’, it’s safe to say he was
pretty happy about that.
So what makes the guy tick?
Hard to say.This writer is no
psychologist, but maybe growing
up in a Canadian hippy commune
and being christened Dharma
Butterfield helped create a free
spirit, open mind and curious
disposition. (In case you’re
wondering, he dropped the
‘Dharma’ and switched to Stewart
when he was 12.)
Or maybe it wasn’t the log cabin
and lack of electricity. Maybe it
was travelling to China alone at 16
or finding himself at Cambridge
a few years later, where he picked
up a degree in philosophy.
Either way, the guy’s got some
serious grey matter and, by all
accounts, he cares. He cares a lot.
He cares about his products, about
being a good boss, about good
coffee, about having ukulele jams
in the office at 3pm, and about
ice-making machines (seriously,
he’s backed at least 3 of them on
Kickstarter). But perhaps most
importantly, he cares about taking
side projects and pivoting them
into main events.And does it well.
He’s certainly got a bit of previous
experience there, and Slack seems
to be the side project that will
secure Stewart’s long-term legacy.
He’s spotted the potential in the
margins and turned them into
multimillion-dollar success stories.
But the breakthroughs and game-
changing products were successful
because something else didn’t
work out. I think this is a lesson
for us all.
Stewart says that Slack still has a
ways to go, but he and his team
are continually working to make
the product even better.And
they are covering all the bases
by offering powerful enterprise
products.
‘Slack is gratifying to work on in
the same way that Flickr was.
The mission is to make people’s
working lives simpler, more
pleasant, more productive.’
Little did he know that the while
the games they bet the farm on
would fail, the tools they used to
build them with would become
the stuff of start-up mythology.
28
Slack timeline
2002 2003 2004 2005 2009
Slack mark
Ludicorp is co-founded by
Stewart Butterfield in Vancouver.
GNE is developed as an MMOG.
(Enough of the acronyms, already.)
Doing well? Not so much.
But a photo-sharing tool built
into the game shows promise.
And boom!
Butterfield co-founds Flickr with
his wife Caterina.
(Trivial fact: the .gne extension
seen in Flickr urls was a legacy
of its Game NeverEnding roots.)
Flickr is sold to Yahoo for $20
million.
Butterfield returns to the world
of gaming and launches a new
company, Tiny Speck. Where
he creates Glitch, a non-violent
MMOG that’s in closed alpha for
a while before going beta.

29
2011 2011 2012 2013 2014 2016 2017
Slack headquarters, Vancouver
slack.com
Glitch launches
(September).
Glitch un-launches
(November).
Tiny Speck starts working
on Slack as an internal side
project.
PIVOT! The side
project turns life raft.
Slack launches.
Slack attracts funding
like billy-o and is valued
at $1.2 billion.
Slack’s value rises to
$3.8 unicorns.
Slack is voted ‘Best
Start-up of the Year’
at The Crunchies.
Galacticos / Slack

30
OMATA
OMATA one: 'The world's first analogue GPS speedometer.'

Galacticos / OMATA
31
Lost Projects
I’ve had a folder on my computer for about 15 years;
it’s titled Rhys’ Lock-Up. In it is a subfolder called Lost
Projects. It’s where my side projects and half-baked
ideas live (or die). But they’re there—a long list of
Lost Projects accumulated over 30 years of being a
designer, consultant and teacher, and being promoted
to a level of incompetence in a corporate leviathan.
They’re all side projects, and the reason I originally
called them ‘lost’ was because I was frustrated that
they never went anywhere—they lost momentum,
I lost interest, they were crap, or all of the above.They
simply got lost.
The one that got away
In 2015, I co-founded a company called OMATA.
We make modern analog bicycle speedometers. It’s so
clear what we’re building; we have absolute focus and
conviction in not only what we are building but in
how we’re building it. I’m very excited. But it wasn’t
always so clear, and OMATA was the one and only Lost
Project that didn’t die.
The origins of OMATA start in 2009, with an idea
—an idea that I tried to tease out with a confused
drawing. I draw a lot; it’s how I think. But this
half idea wasn’t a lightning bolt of insight and
opportunity, it was a moment. I didn’t know that
6 years later I’d found a company on this idea. It
was just a drawing of an idea. It was, however, the
continuation of persistent themes I’d been noodling
around with for several years. It was also a clear
reaction against some of the digital tech projects
I was working on in my day job leading Advanced
Design at Nokia. It was also a sub project within
another side project. Confused? So was the drawing.
But it was the start of something.
Trying to remember and share the circumstances that
not only led to the idea, but gave me the personal
confidence to start OMATA as a business, seem both
arbitrary and strangely inevitable. But what’s clear is
that for about 6 years, OMATA was in the category of
Lost Project. But over that time—through persistence,
circumstance, encouragement and a growing
conviction—OMATA landed in my lap at the centre of
thatVenn diagram that Master Hieatt draws of passion,
skill and opportunity.
No dickheads
In March 2015, with a fair bit of coercion and
persistence from a colleague named Luke Jonson, we
co-wrote a Medium post titled No Dickheads. It is a
guide to building healthy, happy and creative teams.
(I honestly think the title and the pictures are the best
bit.) It simply documents the behaviour and culture
that I feel contributes to an environment where
people want to work, and where creativity fizzes and
crackles. Side projects are part of that culture, and
OMATA was one of mine.
What’s not shared in the post is that the article was
published at the end of my 15 years at Nokia, when
we’d all just been made redundant by a classic fall-out
of corporate shenanigans. Over the years, my personal
side project had become a shared side project, but
it was the end of a salary and a co-conspirator that
pulled OMATA from the side to the single focus.
That article was published within weeks of Julian
Bleecker and me founding OMATA Inc. OMATA had
to be built, we had to do it. Personally, I wondered
whether I could do it without being a dickhead.
Let’s be clear, we have not yet shipped our first
OMATA product (it won’t be long though). So, I’m
OMATA:
At a steady 18mph
RHYS NEWMAN

definitely not in the lofty position
to offer any insights on how
your side project will make you
wealthy.What I can do, is briefly
list the conditions that I think
allowed OMATA to not get lost,
but exist, grow, gain momentum
and draw people towards it and
also towards me.
So, here goes.
A very brief guide to nurturing
and maintaining side projects
without being a cock.
Every project needs a place and
some space. Shed or sketchbook
or something in-between. Side
projects need some place where
you can look at them, work on
them and share them with others.
A place where they can also be
left untouched and not be cleared
away at dinner time.
Curate your place or space.
Side projects and ideas are
naturally absorbent. Surround
your project with bits and bobs
of inspiration and motivation. It’ll
rub off on you and it. I think that’s
why drawing pins and sticky tape
were invented.
Pay continuous partial attention
to your side project.
Keep your project in your
peripheral vision.While
developing OMATA, I kept one
drawing and a sample of an old
speedometer pinned to the top
right hand side of my desk. I
know that’s where I look (up and
to the right) when I’m thinking
or searching for the right word.
The fact that it was always there,
out in the open, kept it in my
sight and my thoughts.
Stepping stones are building
blocks. Ideas and projects do not
live in isolation. One leads to the
next; they inform the following,
build on the previous, and create
skill and knowledge. See stepping
stones more as building blocks.
32
Omata timeline
January 2001 February 2001 November 2007 January 2009 February 2009 September 2010
Rhys relocates to California
to join Nokia Design with his
wife Naomi, who’s 5 months'
pregnant with their first child.
Rhys’ beloved single-speed
Rock Lobster bike is stolen
from Charing Cross Station a
week before leaving UK. Rhys
is devastated. He still looks for
this bike when in London.
Rhys believes it was the
completely wrong decision
to come to Nokia—designer’s
sketch cars constantly, use CAD
and measure surfaces down
to 0.01mm decimal places.
Rhys visits Finland, where he is
given a Fiskars Axe and some
Finnish Vodka, gets naked in
Sauna, visits Oulu and sees the
Northern Lights. There’s hope;
this could be interesting.
Rhys asks to lead Advanced
Design for Nokia, and he’s
promoted to his level of
incompetence. Rhys is now
required to attend significant
leadership team meetings. He
begins drawing voraciously
to pass the time on early AM
calls to Helsinki.
Rhys founds 18milesperhour.
com, a writing and art
side project based on the
scientific research of human
cognition. (FYI 18mph is the
‘comfortable’ pace to travel
through and experience the
world, which also happens
to be a comfortable pace
on a bicycle.)
Rhys completes his
first 24hr solo mtb race.
Removing all GPS and
cycling computers, he
rides with an analog watch
and cycling kit only. Rhys
also creates a drawing
that ultimately sets the
trajectory for OMATA
and the re-introduction
of modern analog
speedometers.
Rhys and the new head
of Nokia Design create
an internal strategic
project called Heads
Up, based on a vision of
products demanding
less attention without
compromising connec-
tivity. Nothing happens.
Left and below: Rhys'
sketchbook and desk.

Go public early. Nobody is going
to steal your idea. Or, it’s very
unlikely. My years in corporate
advanced design bunkers, cloaked
in secrecy and paranoia, were
fine because we were a team.
But side projects are often lonely
endeavours, so I talked openly
and enthusiastically about OMATA.
It drew good people into the
conversation, and good people
help.
No dickheads. Again?!Yes,
it’s so important. New ideas
are like new babies—they’re
immature, they need protecting,
they need nurturing. Don’t let
anyone negative near your side
project—no devil’s advocates and
no allowing your project to be a
vehicle for someone else’s career.
Everyone is a little bit vain and
willing to help. Ask for help
from people you admire—people
who’ve built companies, projects
and teams you love. It works; it’s
amazing! And in turn, help others
when they ask you.
That’s it.
One last thought… go ride a bike.
I’m evangelical about the benefits
of cycling and travelling through
the world at approximately
18mph. But not simply to gain
chiselled calf muscles.There’s
an increasing body of science
connecting the relationship
between cycling and creativity—
honestly! Breathing + pedalling
+ eye scanning that connects
both sides of the brain = a form
of meditation in motion, which
= good ideas.
Galacticos / OMATA
33
December 2014
April 2011
Rhys is promoted to VP
of Advanced Design
and co-leads a Nokia
business group called
Everyday Adventure. The
team is asked to develop
highly advanced and
connected products to
encourage an outdoor
active community and
capture the stories of
those individuals.
July 2013
Rhys and colleague Julian
Bleecker create the term
‘modern mechanical’ to
describe a new product
that balances all the ad-
vances of new technology
with all the qualities of
analog devices. (This is
IMPORTANT—it becomes
a foundation for OMATA.)
August 2014
Rhys and Julian get drunk
in San Francisco and
agree that the OMATA
product is so good, it
has to be built. They go
back to their day jobs
the following day with
hangovers. By now, Rhys
has 3 growing children
that all need shoes.
November 2014
Rhys and Naomi attend an
event in Big Sur with a small
group of entrepreneurs and
wealthy friends. Rhys and
Naomi are not wealthy, and
the children need shoes,
again. Everyone encourages
Rhys to resign on Monday
and start OMATA. Naomi is
nervous but encouraging.
November 2014
(2 weeks later) Rhys is
made redundant.
Three years of product
development for Everyday
Adventure is cancelled
weeks before the launch.
Rhys and Julian incorporate
OMATA.
omata.com
Above, below and right: OMATA in black,
on the road and an early concept sketch.

34
In April 2009, two surfers on
daddy day care duty met in
Leucadia, California.
They shared a love for the ocean
and a disdain for environmentally
irresponsible products, manu-
facturing waste and the creeping
problem of landfill.
Their names were Ed Lewis and
Kipp Denslow.
Ed was working as a designer,
Kipp a stay-at-home dad.
They got talking.
They talked about waves,
technique and the greater
responsibilities of surfers.
Their conversation morphed into
issues about the environment, the
number of broken surfboards that
were virtually non-recyclable, and
ripped, no-longer-usable wetsuits,
abandoned in trash cans on
beaches all the way up the coast.
Every time they met they’d talk
some more.Then they’d part.
Then they’d think some more.
Then they had an idea.
It was hardly a side project; they
HANDCRAFTED
WITH LOVE
OUT OF
CALIFORNIA TRASH

wanted to give an old surfboard
that had been discarded, broken
and trashed, another life on the
ocean wave.And they wanted to
write a one-off, one-time post for
a blog they kept.
The idea behind the post was to
explore what would happen if
you took an old piece of foam,
reshaped it into a hand plane and
attached a neoprene strap from a
discarded wetsuit to it.
But their timing couldn’t have
been better—bodysurfing and
the use of handplanes was really
taking off.
Handplanes, like mini-surfboards,
allow bodysurfers to catch waves
quicker and easier.They allow
you to plane down the face of a
wave and enjoy long rides with
minimum fuss and maximum
‘yew!’
So, they made their first
handplane.
And people liked them—a lot.
They liked the fact that Ed and
Kipp had a mission to keep
broken boards and manufacturing
waste out of landfills, and that
they created products that were
both fun and environmentally
responsible.
After their prototype was made,
Ed opened up about the early days
and how the project evolved.
‘I would work on my design
projects until about 2pm, then
pick up my daughter from school.
We’d go to Kipp’s house to work
on handplanes, usually until
about 9pm, but sometimes until
midnight, depending on the
day and orders. Our girls loved
it because they all hung out and
played.We’d make dinners for
them and do the daddy day care
thing. It was a good time.’
They kept trying things out
—tinkering, refining and
experimenting—but it was still
just a pop-and-pop endeavour.
The whole thing was run out of
Kipp’s garage. But eventually they
grew, and moved into their own
workshop.
As the business evolved, and the
reputation of Enjoy Handplanes
spread, somebody else heard
about what the boys were doing,
and they liked it too.
That somebody was Patagonia.
Because of their commitment to
the environment and recycling
cred, Patagonia spoke to Ed
and Kipp about stocking their
handplanes.They were a good
fit with the company's traditions
and ethos.
But it got better.
At the time, Patagonia had been
working on a sustainable way to
dispose of and/or recycle their old
garments and textiles.The project
was designated #UpCycling.
The idea was that the recycled
Patagonia fabrics could be
custom-glassed into handplanes—
making beautiful and sustainable
wave-riding vehicles.
And by way of a virtuous circle,
Patagonia stores would stock
the handplanes and give them a
second life.
Thousand's of handplanes later,
that side project became a fully-
fledged, high-flying, low-carbon
business.
Ed and Kipp got into making
handplanes by accident. But
their vision, perseverance and
dedication to the planet was far
from accidental.
Because of that, a one-off
experiment became a more
substantial side project.And that
side project ultimately became a
thriving enterprise.
Galacticos / Enjoy Handplanes
35
See more handplanes
at instagram.com/
enjoyhandplanes
enjoyhandplanes.com
Worn-wear patch
©Patagonia

About 5 years ago, in my quest to
retrain from musician to writer,
I completed a creative writing
course and was doing bits of
copywriting here and there.
I was ready for my next creative
challenge, when I found it
watching Coronation Street.
There she was: Fat Brenda. I
say ‘there she was’, but it was
more a case of there she wasn’t
because Brenda was only ever
referenced by name. She was an
invisible character, like Captain
Mainwaring’s wife in Dad’s Army,
but Mancunian and working in a
cab office!
I loved the idea of Fat Brenda.
I pictured her spending
her evenings in a deserted
Weatherfield, sitting at a
switchboard that never lit up and
wondering why everyone else got
to leave except her. It struck me
that it must be a lonely life living
off-screen, always waiting for
your moment in the spotlight.
When you write at home it can
be a solitary existence too, and
I suppose I identified with Fat
Brenda. It was at that point that
I thought what Brenda really
needed wasTwitter.
I wanted to develop a character
using 140 characters, and Fat
Brenda was the perfect blank
canvas with which to do it. If
anything, I thought I’d get a few
followers and have a laugh, and
that would be it.
So Fat Brenda began ‘tweetering’
on 31 August 2011, while she sat
in Streetcars with her ‘hi-phone’
in one hand and a Ginsters pasty
in the other. I invented a best
friend for her too—Bernice.
I had her smoking Dunhill,
drinking Mellow Birds and calling
everyone ‘lovey’. She even had a
catchphrase:‘Flamin’ belting!’
The first thing Brenda needed was
followers, so I sent a few tweets
out to the people who might
actually know who she was.The
first 2 folk that Brenda tweetered
were the Coronation Street Blog and
Steve Huison, who played Eddie
Windass on Coronation Street and
the ginger one in The Full Monty.
Amazingly, both replied, both
retweeted her and both got me
some followers. Success!
From then on, it snowballed. I
started writing ‘Fat Brenda’s Cream
Horn’ on the Coronation Street Blog,
where she gossiped about the
residents of Weatherfield, and her
followers began to grow. Brenda
replied to everyone and was
always grateful for company while
she did her shift.
I did all of this anonymously;
I was obsessive about it. It was
Brenda tweeting. In fact, when I
wrote the blogs and the tweets,
it didn’t even feel like it was me
that was doing it at all. It just felt
natural to write as her—which
must have been strange for my
wife, who used to refer to Fat
Brenda as ‘the other woman.’
36
FAT BRENDA
From watching
Coronation Street to
writing Emmerdale.
Lance
Burkitt

The only time I broke cover was
to Steve Huison viaTwitter,
and after he got over the initial
shock that I was actually a man
in my 30s and not a 55-year-old
switchboard operator, he asked if
I wanted to meet and discuss
some writing ideas.‘YES I DO!’
I replied. So I did, and he was
lovely. He asked if I would write
a play about Fat Brenda.‘YES I
WILL!’ I cried.And then he told
me that he wanted to play her too.
So that’s what happened.The
play was part-produced by
HarrogateTheatre, directed by
Steve’s wifeTheresa Smith, and
played over 2 nights in their main
theatre space. It got one of the
largest attendances for a piece
of new writing, and it played
in Manchester too.There were
articles written about Brenda and
me in the Metro and the Manchester
Evening News—it was quite surreal.
And throughout this, Coronation
Street was kind and supportive.
They allowed me to use their
intellectual property and read
through the play to make sure
it was all in keeping with their
brand.
So on the strength of all that, and
with the help of some amazing
people that Brenda and I met
along the way, I attended some
storyliner workshops at ITV
and ended up getting a job as a
storyliner at Hollyoaks.And now
I’m at Emmerdale.And that’s all
down to Fat Brenda.
The side project I started to keep
myself sane and creative landed
me my dream job of writing
soap. She’s still there too,‘on the
Tweeter’, smoking her Dunhill
and lamenting to her 13,000
followers about her broken
Clairol Footspa and her monthly
Tena Lady bill. Bless her.
Steve Huison used to say that
‘when you do something for
the love of it, people respond
to it because you’re not doing
it to make money, you’re doing
it because you want to’, and he
was right. Doing something
without the expectation of reward
is probably the most honest
thing you’ll do, even if you’re
pretending to be someone else.
Joe Parkinson
Galacticos / Fat Brenda
37
@FatBrenda
'WHEN YOU DO SOMETHING FOR THE LOVE OF IT,
PEOPLE RESPOND TO IT BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT
DOING IT TO MAKE MONEY, YOU'RE DOING IT
BECAUSE YOU WANT TO.'
–STE VE HUISON

38
He’s football crazy.
He’s football mad.
JOHAN KRAMER

Galacticos / Johan Kramer
39
Johan Kramer is, by his own
admission an autodidact. (Yes,
we had to look that word up too.)
‘By simply doing things,
you discover a lot,’ he says,
with forehead-smacking
understatement.
Curious, inventive, restless—like
all good creatives. He blends what
he knows with, more importantly,
what he needs to know, and so
continually discovers, mines,
unearths and builds.
And then he ships. By god does
he ship.
A busy, awards-garlanded man
with a roster of to-die-for paying
clients, his appetite for passion
projects is hearty. He’s been doing
his own thing his whole career.
A combination of a brilliant
creative, mentor and motivator,
he can also pull off the trick of
being a vigorously hands-off
manager. (Johan has a talent and
reputation for pulling together
just the right, and often diverse,
blend of collaborators on his
projects.And letting them do
their thing = result.)
He also encourages other directors
and photographers to do side
projects too.
As he puts it,‘Why sit and wait
for someone to give you a job?’
Warming to this theme, Johan
identifies a worrying trend in
advertising and the wider world
of commercial creative work:‘The
stupid thing is that people always
give you jobs based on what you
have done before, instead of what
you can do.’
Which, of course, is where a side
project comes in. It gives you the
chance and opportunity to show
Jürgen & Johan
All
photographs
by
kind
permission
of
Johan
Kramer

the other side of who you are,
and the work or area that you love.
Johan sees no difference in his
approach to a commissioned
commercial job and a project
that he starts himself. Both are
done with the same passion, and
he always seems to have the desire
and drive to try out something
new.
Football has also played a big part
in Johan’s life—he was signed by
AFC Ajax as a young man.And
at an even younger age, he was
writing weekly articles for his
local football club.
And telling stories, often
football ones, has developed into
something of personal obsession.
He loves to find and tell the stories
of outsiders, of people that have
a slightly different perspective.
One of his most well-known
projects is The Other Final, a
documentary about the match
between the 2 lowest-ranked
football teams in the world that
took place on the same day as
the 2002 FIFA World Cup final.
‘Until that time,’ he says,‘I only
shot commercials and short films.
I was desperately looking to shoot
a longer format, so I invented a
project.’
Consequently, he got loads of
interest from advertising agencies
to do more sports-related
commissions, and carved out
something of a niche for himself
with his well-observed, often
quirky style.
As he states somewhat trenchantly:
‘This is what happens with side
projects: side effects. It’s never the
intention to do it, but it’s just a
sweet bonus that happens.’
Another much-loved project of
Johan’s is a short film called La
Veu del Barça that highlights the
long career of ManelVich—a
wonderful old chap who’d been
the PA announcer at FC Barcelona
for almost 60 years.
No one asked Johan to make this
charming film. It was just a story
he wanted to tell.The same goes
for that slightly dotty one about
a Barça fan who, for good luck,
40

drove his car around the stadium
50 times every single day.
Fittingly, Halal, the agency that
represents him in Amsterdam,
has always done side projects.
So it’s a perfect combination.
As was his latest film Horacio &
Johan, a mesmerisingly beautiful
documentary on Johan Cruyff's
years at FC Barcelona and
the special bond he had with
photographer Horacio Seguí.
Kramer has been a star creative
striker for almost 30 years—be
that for global brands or intimate,
for-the-love-of-the-game passion
projects.
And, perhaps not surprisingly for
this intellectually rigorous man,
he threw in a bit of a ‘Cruyff
Turn’ on the final whistle of our
interview:‘Somehow I don’t
like the term “side projects”.
I see everything as a main project;
there’s no difference with other
projects.
‘They get the same attention, love
and devotion.
‘The only difference is that quite
often the so-called side project is
more personal.
‘And of course, you don’t get paid
for it (at least most of the time).’
41
Galacticos / Johan Kramer
JOHAN KRAMER
johankramer.com

Johan shooting a TV
commercial on Super-8
for CopaFootball Shirt
s

A new space for
journalists
designers
painters
woodworkers
policymakers
activists
programmers
musicians
entrepreneurs
artists
photographers
students
troublemakers
environmentalists
architects
sculptors
engineers
writers
futurists…
42
From
the
Lost
Arts
website

Charles Adler is an entrepreneur,
designer and life-long nomad.
You might know him for his role
as co-founder of a little thing
called Kickstarter.
His titles have spanned founder,
consultant and advisor, but his
work has primarily centred on
supporting independent artists
and fellow risk-takers.
Since he transitioned out of
Kickstarter, he has founded Lost
Arts.
Based in Chicago, Lost Arts is
a laboratory, workshop, atelier,
incubator and playground.
It is rooted in a legacy of
interdisciplinary spaces and offers
tools, resources and kinship to
creatives that are bringing new
ideas to life.
‘Focus on a personal project.
Start a business.
Discover a new discipline.
Explore an idea, then build it.’
Take it away, Charles.
On starting Kickstarter
I was introduced to Perry Chen
towards the end of 2006 by a
mutual friend.At the time, I was
running my own design studio,
which launched a little over a
year prior, while also flirting with
another team that was starting
another company.
Perry was looking for support,
for a collaborator to define the
product that would become
Kickstarter, as well as the business
as a whole.That said, he wasn't
sure how much time he needed,
and as a good entrepreneur, he
was being resourceful with how
and where he spent the money he
had. Essentially, our relationship
started with a handshake
agreement.We would work for a
few weeks, and if he felt confident
to carry on with what we had
produced, I would get paid for my
time. If he felt he needed more
time, we would cross that bridge
in a few weeks. Clearly we crossed
that other bridge.
Over the next 2 years, the 3 of us
(includingYancey Strickler, who
had joined Perry a year prior)
dug in deep to get Kickstarter
launched. It was 200% of my
time.There are many stories to tell
about that period. It was our life.
But I held onto a few of my clients
to sustain myself financially, and
as a safety mechanism in case
we weren't successful.As 2008
closed, I shed myself of my clients
and the studio to fully focus on
Kickstarter.We were about to
launch.
On 24 February 2009, my
daughter Phoebe was born.
We launched Kickstarter on 28
April 2009. It was an insane year.
On Kickstarter
The early days of Kickstarter were
beautiful. It was insanely hard
work, but we were on a mission.
On a mission to find a path
for our friends in the arts who
weren't able to get a leg up.Who
couldn't get their work out in the
world because they lacked access
to money, and the industries they
worked in weren't willing to take
the risk. In those early days, we
literally knew everyone who was
using the platform.
Truth be told, it's still very much
the same.The scope and style of
projects have evolved, but that
core value is very much constant:
empowering creative people to
bring their projects into existence
through the support of a loving
community of fans. It's humbling
to see what's come of it, and I
have a deep sense of pride each
time I get to hang with someone
who's put themself out there
through the platform.
On leaving Kickstarter
This was hard.Almost impossibly
hard.The psychology of leaving a
company like Kickstarter brought
me to a unique mental state. My
reasons for leaving were many, yet
at the heart of it, I wanted another
challenge. I was turning 40. I saw
what we were able to accomplish.
I felt that the team I had built and
the company we had built were
in a solid position. I was ready for
whatever came next.
On the gap
The abyss of the unknown was
my plan, which is to say there was
none. It was scary, but that was the
point. I had no defined timeline,
but I did have a constraint in
terms of savings. I spent the year
consulting, advising and doing an
Galacticos / Charles Adler
43
CHARLES ADLER

44
array of speaking gigs.
It should be noted that Lucy, my
wife, is exceptionally patient with
me and my path in life. So yeah,
partners are critical, and Lucy is
mine.
Each project and speaking
event that I took provided me
something equally as valuable as
the income it provided. Discovery.
I needed to reconnect with the
world after Kickstarter, and
travel was a key conduit for that
connection.
I had a crutch. Leading up to
my departure, I'd spent months
in coffee shops and bars.Alone
with a notebook. Jotting down
thoughts and ideas. But there was
one idea that I kept coming back
to time and again.The idea of a
studio space with a wide range of
creatives working independently
and together. It was an idea I
couldn't shake.
On the moment
After 15 years in my head, Lost
Arts was born from an experience
in 2001.At that time, I was a
designer and developer, spending
the vast majority of my time on
a laptop in an airplane while
travelling from project to project.
But it was in 2001 when the
idea to build a piece of furniture
came to be. It came from a single,
innocent question from Lucy:
‘When are you going to get rid of
this crap?’
‘This crap’ was comprised of 3
turntables, a mixer and an array of
records.They sat in a state of active
disarray atop a wire shelf. It wasn't
pretty amid our Eames and Mies
furnishings.
After much investigation of my
options to replace the wire shelf,
I settled on the idea to build a
turntable stand reflective of our
new aesthetic. But there was a gap.
I had no tangible experience or
know-how. Nor the tools or space
to attempt this build.
Armed with a sketch and a list
of materials, I used the only
resources I had: my father-in-
law’s circular saw and backyard.
For a bit of context, this was in
the Chicago suburbs, in mid-
December. Ideal.As the circular
saw spun up, flurries descended.
The next moments were magical,
as the blade bore into a beautiful
walnut veneered plywood sheet.
And then it ended.What was
designed as a straight line, turned
into an incomplete squiggle.
Failure. Project over. I realised my
incompetence and acquiesced.
On the idea
Back to 2013. Upon leaving
Kickstarter, the reflection of that
moment was richer. I noted the
recurring idea of a cooperative
workshop, replete with the tools
to support many disciplines,
materials and projects. I was filled
with observations of others who'd
tried and failed, or tried and
succeeded. In both paths, struggle
was the consistent thread.And it
was this struggle that I wanted to
poke at.To make simpler.To make
it possible for that 2001-version of
myself to accomplish the build of
my turntable stand.
On the innocent start
In July of 2015, I opened the doors
to the first instantiation of Lost
Arts.A one-month pop-up event
located in Chicago's West Loop
(on the corner of Morgan and
Hubbard). It was a 4,000-square
foot-warehouse, previously
occupied as a meat packer. In 3
days, it was transformed into a
workshop. Scrappy, dirty, rough,
but romantic. It wasn't the vision
fulfilled, it was simply a test.
To access the space, you needed to
be invited by me. Heavily curated,
I invited a wide array of people
from a vast range of creative
disciplines to use the space as
they saw fit.Architects, graphic
designers, painters, musicians,
chemists, engineers, technologists
and more.The tool set was equally
as wide ranging. From table saws
and a drill press to 3D printers,
a laser cutter, sewing machines,
soldering irons and screen
printing equipment.All facets
were used in a variety of ways.
At the end of it, I cried. It was
beautiful. It was exhausting. But
it was worthwhile. I'd discovered
the untapped potential for a
highly designed space, community

45
Galacticos / Charles Adler
and toolset.This was the innocent
start.
On Lost Arts
Armed with a month of insight,
I carried on to build the current
version of Lost Arts. Intended
as a 6-month prototype. Better
than the last version, but still
not perfect.This round was to
understand the economics and
operations of Lost Arts.Would
people pay for access? What skills
were necessary for the team? How
much space would I need? What
other facilities would I need?
What was a 6-month prototype
has now extended into a longer
test, further leading to the first
official Lost Arts space in Chicago.
But this is simply the beginning.
The vision? A series of spaces
spotted across the globe in key
cities to support and empower
more creative people who are
producing more creative projects.
From artists to entrepreneurs.This
is simply the start, to what I hope
is a long road.
Lost Arts' design studio
lostarts.co

46
MAT THEW HOFFMAN
You Are Beautiful
Seriously. Let’s brag about him for a second.
He’s created large-scale installations for Facebook,
Zappos, Groupon and Cards Against Humanity.
His work has been published in books by Gestalten,
Droog andTaschen, and he’s even been featured on
the Oprah Network.
But guess what. It all started with a side project.
Or better yet, 100 poorly-printed stickers.
Since their first run in 2002, theYou Are Beautiful
stickers have been shared over 3 million times
and have impacted every continent in the world
(including Antarctica).
So, stickers?Talk me through your idea process. How
did it all happen?
I wish I could say I hatched a brilliant long-term plan
and had it all mapped out. But it was more reactionary
and immediate. I moved to Chicago in 2002 and
had never spent any time in a big city. It was wild—
amazing. But also incredibly overwhelming. I didn’t
know many people and felt isolated in the busyness.
So I wanted to create a simple, calming message in
the chaos.To say:‘Breathe. Relax.Take a moment.
Everything’s okay.You’re all good. Now go about your
day’. So I made 100 stickers and began slapping them
up.
How did you come up with the phrase ‘you are
beautiful’?
I played around with a lot of different ideas. But when
I landed on that phrase, it just felt true. For everyone.
‘Beautiful’ has a broad interpretation, which gives it
a lot of flexibility and freedom.
What were your initial hopes for the project?
My initial hopes were to just make things a little
better. I’ve always said that this sticker isn’t going
to change the world. But it does have the power to
change someone’s world, and that’s enough for me.
It’s taken me over a decade to realise it, but the main
idea running behind this project is hope. It’s the
hope that things can and will get better than they are
right now.
So you printed some stickers, made a one-paged
website for orders, and kept your day job.
Did anything change after the launch of YAB?
I mean, there wasn’t any launch or release party. It
wasn’t anything fancy. It was just this hopeful kid
slapping up stickers in the street. My life wasn’t any
different before or directly after. I was just breaking
some laws for a positive reason.
How has the project changed since then?
I never planned much out. I just worked on the things
that needed to happen. I bought a label maker and
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Matthew Hoffman is a Chicago-based artist and designer whose public
works have been exhibited internationally.

47
Galacticos / Matthew Hoffman
shipping software because writing envelopes by hand
was getting old. I purchased shipping supplies when
the envelopes from the local office store were bursting
in the mail. I brought in help when I simply couldn’t
get all the work done in time.As orders piled up,
installations got bigger—I simply couldn’t do it on
my own.
It’s always grown bit by bit in that way. So although
it’s evolved over the last 15 years, I believe it holds
as much power as it did in 2002.We still want this
positive message to spread to everyone.We want
people to feel good, and we want our art and design
to be appreciated by people in all walks of life.
Was there ever a moment when you thought ‘this is
getting big’?
That’s a tough question—I always play everything
down.
We’ve printed 3.5 million stickers in 100 languages.
We’ve been invited to paint murals and create
installations around the world. I’ve met and worked
alongside Shepard Fairey, Faile, Dark Clouds and so
many others. Seth Godin has talked about the project
at a major conference. It was featured on Oprah’s
Sunday-morning show for a year.We now run a full-
time studio with staff.We ship orders daily around
the world, and pull off some really massively fun
installations.
But to me, its ‘bigness’ is the community that has
grown around it.The lives a little sticker has touched,
and the interactions it’s created.To me, that’s the good
stuff. Coming across a sticker in the wild is crazy
and heartwarming.There aren’t words to explain
that feeling. I think the hands together/centre chest
emoticon comes the closest.
Why do you think it resonates so much with people?
The most common story we hear is that someone
came across a sticker randomly—that it took them
by surprise and created a moment.That after a little
research, they found out where the sticker came from,
and they ordered a big pack to share that moment
with others.
It’s human to want to feel good about yourself, and
the act of sharing that with others can be even more
rewarding. It can often create an endless loop of
positivity.
A lot of the installations you’ve created through your
main studio, Hey It’s Matthew, also have simple,
positive messages (i.e. Go For It,WhatYou Do Matters,
WorkTogether, Let’s Be Human). BeforeYAB, did you
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The sticker

48
MAT THEW HOFFMAN
Kacie McGeary
interviewed
Matthew Hoffman
for The Do Lectures.
think that such encouraging messages could create a
sustainable career?
YAB has shown me that being positive is not silly or
trite, and it has the possibility to be rewarding and
accepted by the world at large. Often in the art/design
world, our focus is on negativity or what’s going
wrong.To do something with such a positive message
is almost a rebellious act. It’s pushed me to have the
confidence to believe in what I’m putting out there.
So Hey It’s Matthew is the playground where I try out
these new and off-the-wall ideas—where I play and
take risks.
How else hasYAB changed the way you see yourself,
side projects and the world at large?
Honestly, this project has brought me so much hope.
When things seem dreary—when I feel completely
overworked, undervalued and utterly exhausted—
we get a letter in the mail or get tagged in a photo.
Someone says,‘Thank you so much for doing this,
it means the world!’That right there, that simple
little remark makes all the difference. It makes the
hard work worth it, and it gives me hope that we
(humanity) have the power to make things better.
What we’re doing is hard to categorise. In some
instances we’re classified as ‘sign installers’,‘sticker
printers’ or ‘an internet business’. So even if you don’t
fit in with how things have always been, it doesn’t
mean you can’t make it happen.
I started this project as a defiant act, as a protest from
all the self-doubt and garbage society throws on us.
As a battle cry against the negativity that’s so easy to
focus on. So, to be able to offer hope every day—it’s
humbling. It’s amazing.
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Galacticos / Matthew Hoffman
you-are-beautiful.com
heyitsmatthew.com

50
Images
©Jessica
Abel
‘CREATIVITY COMES OUT OF COMING BACK TO “THE THING”
OVER AND OVER AGAIN—BY CONFRONTING YOURSELF WITH IT,
LETTING YOURSELF SIT WITH IT AND THEN MOVING IT
FORWARD BIT BY BIT. THAT’S HOW THINGS GET FINISHED.’

Galacticos / Jessica Abel
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JESSICA ABEL
Before we get into the Q&A, I have to say,
interviewing you does feel a bit intimidating. Not
simply because you literally wrote the book on some
of the best interviewers on the planet, but because
you’ve also done a ton of work on the subject of side
project success.And you’re recognised as the go-to
person for advice on the subject. So, if you will, can
you kick us off with what you see as the key take-outs
for anybody embarking on a creative side project?
Number one: Make sure that your project has space in
your life and in your schedule.
There are a lot of moving parts to a side project, and
the thing that I talk about a lot is that your system is
going to be very different depending on what your
life contains and how you work. Consider too, that
you’ll also have to be able to say no to things.
Don’t get overwhelmed with stuff that matters a lot
less.You have to have a system around the project;
you have to create a way to organise your time and
priorities in the service of what it is you want to be
doing.
So are you saying the key is to create a unique, custom
blend of activities and routine that works for you?
Like a personal operating system?
Yes, I think that’s right. Pay attention to what works
for you, and then build on that.
Would you view a system and the side project it
supports as an exploration of what’s possible? An
experiment, even?
Yes, I think that’s true. It is about experimentation, but
it’s also about looking at what really is in your life,
what really has worked for you, and not just randomly
stabbing at things that might work.
There are so many levels to this.You have to have
a vision of where you want to go.You have to say:
‘This project, this thing, means this to me. It’s this
important; therefore, I’m going to devote time to it.
Last year, Jessica Abel wrote one
of our favourite books. It’s called
Out on theWire:The Storytelling Secrets
of the New Masters of Radio.
It’s an information-packed comic
book that takes you behind the
scenes of some of today’s most
popular radio shows and podcasts,
including This American Life and
RadioLab.
It explores some of the key issues
of creativity, production and
getting stuff done.
So we thought she’d be the
perfect person to give us some
key insights on the subject of
side projects.And we weren’t
disappointed.
Over a crackly Skype line
stretching across the Atlantic,
here’s what we learned.
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I’m going to give my energy to it’.You have to have
that vision to move forward and to make sure you’re
on the right track.
But, if you are thinking about that aspect too much,
you can fall into what I call the ‘Idea Debt’.You get
caught up in perfectionism, the feeling like everything
needs to be just so, and all the conditions need to
be aligned.Then guess what happens?You can’t do
anything.
So you need to build a system where you can break
down the larger project into small enough bits. So
that you can look at the next bit that’s in front of you,
and just do that thing.You need to be able to not think
about the larger implications day to day.
Is there an element of the Japanese Kaizen approach
here, the small incremental, but consistent iterations
and improvements along the path?
Right.
What’s your view on the ‘P’ word (procrastination)?
The problem with side projects, especially ones you’re
not getting paid for, is that they are inherently self-
motivated. Nobody is telling you this is worthwhile;
nobody’s making room for it. It’s on you to do that;
you have to believe in yourself enough.You have to
believe in the project enough to move forward with it.
Which really can be a procrastination trigger.
Procrastination is going to be the #1 thing that holds
you back.
Do you think that no matter what the actual side
project is, there is another end product?That in
addition to a successful completion of whatever
the side project is, there’s also another ‘thing’ being
created, and that ‘thing’ is a whole new you?
Because what you learn about yourself, and how you
change during that process, helps you realise that you
have to implement some form of new and improved
personal behaviour design to get your side project to
the finish line.And that such behaviour change might
be, for example, fixing your long-held procrastination
problem or taking better care of yourself by way of
exercise, diet and sleep.
Yes, I think that’s true. But I don’t think the personal
change aspect is necessarily motivating for some
people.
Fair point. Getting back to your main argument and
your earlier advice about doing what it takes—can
you expand on this?
Yes.What it takes is daily, weekly commitment.And
making literal time on your literal calendar.
You have to pay what it costs to do the ‘thing’.Which
means not doing other things.Which means maybe
money.Which means you have to negotiate with the
people who want your time.Which means that you
have to say no to stuff.Which means overcoming the
fear of exposure.You know, those are all real costs.
But I think the biggest problem for people who are
starting side projects and trying to grapple with self-
generated creative work is that they think they can’t
just get their butt in a chair and do it.
And once they think that, they’re doomed.
They say they care about this ‘thing’, but they’re not
doing it; they feel terrible about themselves, and they
think that there’s no way out.
But there is.
They have to create a low-pressure, repeatable, daily
system to get into their creative space.They have
to keep moving forward bit by bit. It’s not about
jumping off the high dive.
Create your system then trust the system.
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Then the process of moving a side project forward
is iterative—not simply a big leap off the 10-metre
tower at the pool? It’s more grit and grind, getting
yourself sat in that chair. Showing up and getting
on with it. Is that in itself, in a sense, success?
Sure, but real success is finishing the project.The
problem is, this thing about ‘all you have to do is
just get yourself in the chair and just force yourself
through’ can be misleading.
It’s not about willpower.
It’s about creating systems that avoid draining your
willpower.
Make doing the work more automatic than not, make
it just the thing you do.
Being a martyr to the creative struggle, thinking
that it has to be painful, and that you have to force
yourself—I don’t buy that.
It’s better if you frame it simply as ‘this is part of my
life’, and you prioritise the project because it’s deeply
important to you. It keeps you sane, moves you
forward and makes you feel connected to the bigger
things in life.
But at the same time, you don’t want to stop feeding
your children, or stop going to work if you have a day
job, or the other things you really need to be doing
with your time.
You have to balance those things. Find a way to weave
everything that matters together.
So it’s not so much the ‘hero’s journey’ as the
‘pragmatist’s path’?
Yeah, I think that’s right.The heroic imagery we use
about creativity is damaging.The starving artist in
the garret, the heroic paint-spattered painter with
a whisky in hand (it’s always a ‘he’ by the way, isn’t
it?)—it’s super destructive in terms of how people
think creativity is supposed to work. Creativity
comes out of coming back to the ‘thing’ over and
over again—by confronting yourself with it, letting
yourself sit with it and then moving it forward bit by
bit.That’s how things get finished.
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But aren’t there also other facets of this process,
or small triumphs along the way, that we need to
celebrate and be proud of? Aren’t there also rewarding
experiences of flow and the joy of doing something
you’re really, really proud of?
Yes, of course.Things like that give your life meaning,
but the actual doing of it is not heroic.The results can
be wonderful, life-changing. But the actual functional
doing, the way you get yourself into it and the way
that you work your way through it, can be great but
also painful.All kinds of different emotions are going
to show up.
Sometimes you feel on top, sometimes you feel like
you’ll never make it. But you need to keep going.You
need to get done what you need to get done.
Everybody chases flow, everybody likes the feeling
that everything’s going well, but creativity inevitably
goes through what I call ‘The Dark Forest’.The part
of the creative process where things are just really,
really difficult, and you don’t know the way forward.
You don’t feel confident that you’re going to be able
to solve this problem, or that you can get the ‘thing’
done.
But if you have this structure to fall back on, if you
have a system and you come back to it, you’re not
going to get discouraged and run away.You know that
you can do it.That’s what’s going to get you through
those tough parts.That’s when the system helps you
do the things you have to do.
The fun parts, the joyful parts—that’s easy.When it’s
going great, you want to sit down all day and do the
‘thing’.
But if you have this structure to fall back on, if you
have a system and you come back to it, you’re not
going to get discouraged and run away.You know that
you can do it.That’s what’s going to get you through
those tough parts.That’s when the system helps you
do the things you have to do.
When things aren’t going well on a project, what do
you advise? What do you do? Mediation, yoga, go for
a walk, call a friend?
I have this idea called ‘Focus Sessions’. For when
you’re totally in a jam with something. Basically, you
meet with somebody who would be a great reader,
viewer or consumer of your ‘thing’. It doesn’t have
to be another professional, just somebody who will
engage with it and you.
You talk through the problem.You explain what the
problem is, where you’re getting stuck and you get
feedback from the person. But more importantly, you
work it through in your own head by talking about it
out loud. It’s really fairly magical.
You record it, then you relisten to the recording, and
as you listen, new things will come up for you.You’ll
remember things and you will solve various problems.
It may not get you all the way through, you may
need a bunch of Focus Sessions, but it’s going to start
dissolving some of the knots around where you’re
stuck.
When you’re working on ideas or writing and
sketching out projects, how do you capture your
thinking? Do you use notebooks, do you make audio
reminders on your phone, do you use Evernote,Trello
and the like?
I usually collect notes in Evernote. I definitely speak
out loud when I’m formulating something in my
head
; when I’m walking around, I’ll make an audio
note for myself and transcribe it later.When I’m
actually drafting a coherent thing, I usually turn to
Scrivener. I take everything and put it in there. It does
a really good job of organising your research and your
writing into structures.
Do you have a p.o.v. on the perils of people who have
too many side projects on the go? Should they prune
them?
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Well, I think anybody with a side project should
focus on prioritisation. People often have so many,
too many projects.And then they get distracted.
Trying to do all those different things is an invitation
to procrastination.
It’s not that you can’t do them sometimes, you just
can’t do them all at the same time.
It’s about putting things in order according to
your priorities.And doing the first thing first.Then
continuing on from there.
Anything else?
I want to debunk the heroic artist idea.
Everything I write on this topic is about the idea of
creating a system around your real life, and a real
way of working, so that you can chip away at things
regularly instead of thinking that you have to wait for
some kind of wave of inspiration to hit you.
Of course, people want the easy way out. Of course,
everybody wants a formula. But you’re not going
to do great work using someone else’s formula.
If you want to make something that’s new and
transformative in the world, you’re going to have to
work harder than that. Everybody knows that.
Agreed, everybody knows that. I’m not sure
everybody’s buying it, in terms of implementing
what is really good advice, though.
That’s the thing—they know it, but they don’t want
to believe it.They want to believe that they’ll just be
struck by inspiration, and then it’ll all just flow out of
them. But that is not how it works.The fantasy is that
if you just strike that seam, you will solve this problem
for yourself once and for all.That things will just flow,
you’ll be discovered and everything will be fine. But
anybody who examines that thought process with any
kind of honesty at all will realise that the inspiration
thing is completely untrue.
But don’t you think there’s an element of truth in the
‘flash of inspiration’ idea?That 90% or more of the
time, yes, it’s hard work and one has to follow the
path and discipline that you outline. But this thing
about inspiration—surely there is a role for it.
Inspiration does show up and does have a place in the
creative process, if only occasionally.When you’re out
walking the dog, in the shower, preparing dinner—
those are the times when the solution comes and taps
you on the shoulder out of nowhere.When you’ve
been struggling with something, miraculously, the
answer comes when you least expect it.
Of course.And that’s the key right there: when you’ve
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been struggling with something.When you struggle
with something regularly, inspiration does show up.
But if you are NOT grappling with it regularly, it will
not show up.
Aah. Of course!Yes. It’s like you’ve got to prime the
pump.You’ve got to prime the inspiration by doing
the graft, the research and writing a thousand ideas
that won’t work.Then walk away from it.Then all of
a sudden, you’re out riding your bike one day, and
bingo
—
it comes. But only because of all the heavy-
lifting and deep work you’ve put in before that. It’s
struggle first, then success later.
Yes.That’s exactly how it works.
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Mike Coulter interviewed Jessica Abel for The Do Lectures.

57
jessicaabel.com
Jessica Abel is an American comic book writer and artist known
for Life Sucks; Drawing Words & Writing Pictures; Soundtrack: Short
Stories 1989-1996; La Perdida; Mirror, Window; Radio: An Illustrated
Guide; and the omnibus series Artbabe.

58
Emer
Tumilty

XX
Just about every SiliconValley startup has one or two behaviour
designers on board. Every Amazon or NewYorkTimes bestseller list
includes books on habits and how to change them.And just about
everybody’s inbox is stuffed with more than a few newsletters
to help you create a ‘new you’. But it’s true: if you’re going to
embark on any side project, you’ll have to rejig some aspects of
your life. It’s often a good thing, but rarely
an easy thing.
BEHAVIOUR DESIGN

60
Experiment,
experience,
explore.
Johanna
Frisch
When we embrace a side project, there’s often
something else we need to get to grips with.
Namely, behaviour change.
Or, developing new habits to deal with old hang-ups.
Explore your options, find a good fit and try new
behaviours on for size.
Approach aspects of personal change and
development with an open mind, a spirit of curiosity
and flexibility.And then just see what gives.
One of the world’s leading proponents and exponents
of this mindset isTim Ferriss.
Tim spoke atThe Do Lectures in 2008—that's right,
2008. (We specialise in crystal balls.)
Now a best-selling author, podcaster, entrepreneur
and investor,Tim explores new ways of doing things.
Experimenting with time, process and body hacks has
become a way of life for him.
But it wasn’t always this way.
He used to work for the man—sat behind a desk,
making cold-calls in an attempt to sell data storage
solutions to companies.
‘Smiling and dialling’, as he describes it.
He wasn’t happy. But he was smart. He started to
experiment with himself and his job.
A question about his pissy role popped into his head:
‘What if I tried something completely different for
48 hours?’
And so he explored something none of the other sales
reps were doing. Something they would never have
thought of.
While they were all zigging he zagged.They were on
the phone to potential clients all the day long, but he
decided to only make sales calls from 7am-8:30am
and 6pm-7:30pm.

Behaviour Design / Experiment, experience, explore.
61
He asked potential clients questions instead of hard-
selling. He went deep and studied technical data about
the products.And so he came across more like an
engineer than a salesperson.
‘The experiments paid off,’ he writes.‘My last quarter
in that job, I outsold the entire LA office of our
biggest competitor.’
What Ferriss discovered, and what his name is now
synonymous with, is nothing more or less than the
art of ‘redesigning your life’.
And the good news? We can all do it.
Tim, an advocate of the 80/20 principle, states:
‘Success, however you define it, is achievable if you
collect the right field-tested beliefs and habits.’
He’s right, isn’t he?
It’s only by pulling together a bunch of tools, tactics,
tips and techniques, and trying those things out that
we get anywhere. By consistently reviewing, tweaking
and refining.
Why not tryTim’s philosophy and see where you
end up?
A side project could prove to be the perfect lab to try
this out.
Start with something low-risk and low-stakes.
Something you care about, but won’t get all busted
up over if it doesn’t turn out.A creative idea, making
something, a new way of doing things—whatever
you like.
It might also be an idea to design a few simple
experiments to test on yourself and your current
habits. Nothing fancy, too demanding or arduous.
But the results could be enlightening.
Become a side project scientist.
It might start with an audit of how you use your
available resources. Cross-checking to see if what
you currently do syncs with what you’d like to
do. Investigating if there are any disconnects or
changes needed in your daily routines and activities.
Researching best practice and good guidance.
Do you need to hit reset on anything?Your diet and
energy levels, sleep, physical activity, the physical
space where you’ll work on the project? Do you need
to find a great coffee shop with rock-solid wifi, or do
you need to discover a ‘thinking space' outdoors?
Once you have a feel for what needs to be done, try a
few options out, bench-test, play around with things,
see what sticks.
But whatever you do, don’t be too hard on yourself,
You can’t fail, you’re just looking for feedback at this
stage, to help you develop more skills, ability and
insight.Take your time and enjoy the enquiry.
Tim counsels ‘relentless focus on actionable details’.
We’d suggest that’s for the graduate class.
For now, play around, have fun, discover, ease into
the process. Figure out what your potential road-
blocks are.
Pick an area you’d like to change.Then go for it.
tim.blog
Footnote | Tim Ferriss wrote The 4-Hour Workweek to break free of a workaholic lifestyle (but you probably
already knew that). His latest book, The Tools of Titans, is also on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
Tim Ferriss speaking at The
Do Lectures in 2008.

62
Habits
Ellen Langer
We hear a lot about mindfulness these days, but Dr
Langer is one of the world’s leading authorities on
mindlessness. She’s also the first woman to be tenured
in psychology at Harvard.Through her extraordinary
work (and experiments), Ellen has identified how the
mindless following of routine and other automatic
behaviour leads to error, pain and a predetermined
course of life. In a recent book, she asked, explored
and reframed the question ‘can we do it?’ to ‘how can
we do it?’
Charles Duhigg
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Charles
Duhigg wrote the highly acclaimed book on the
science of habit formation, The Power of Habit:WhyWe Do
WhatWe Do in Life and Business. Not surprisingly, the book
spent over 60 weeks on The NewYorkTimes’ Best Sellers
list.As Dan Pink, no mean writer himself, said,‘Once
you read this book, you’ll never look at yourself, your
organisation or your world quite the same way.’
Judson Brewer
Judson Brewer (MD, PhD) is a thought-leader in
the field of habit change and the ‘science of self-
mastery’.And he’s developed and tested many novel
mindfulness programs for habit change. Particularly,
underlying neural mechanisms using standard and
real-time fMRI. He’s currently the director of research
at the Center for Mindfulness and an associate
professor in medicine and psychiatry at UMass
Medical School. Oh, and he is also a research affiliate
at MIT.
There’s no doubt about it. In
order to be successful while
working on side projects, we’ll
have to adjust some of our
habits. (Including those not-
so-great ones we got but don’t
want, and those ones we’d like to
strengthen.)
That means looking at work
habits, money habits, sleep habits,
how we allocate and use our time,
and what behaviours we can adopt
in the service of boosting our
energy levels.
Luckily, there are some world-class
mentors and guides out there. So,
with your permission, we’d like
to spend the following paragraphs
dropping a few names so you can
pick up some new habits.
We’ll leave it to you to dig
deeper if anybody piques,
pimps or pricks your curiosity.

Behaviour Design / Habits
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BJ Fogg
An expert in creating systems to change human
behaviour, Stanford professor BJ Fogg is the go-to
SiliconValley guy for behaviour design. Creator of the
Tiny Habits method of behaviour change, he offers a
free, simple and powerful 5-day online course about
the basics.As well as a high-ticket 2-day bootcamp. Is
he any good? Well, 10 years ago Instagram co-founder
Mike Krieger was one of his students.We’ll leave it at
that.
Jocelyn K. Glei
Founding editor and director of 99U, Jocelyn led
the brand in its mission to provide the missing
curriculum on making ideas happen. Jocelyn is a
highly acclaimed author who writes about work and
creativity in the ‘age of distraction’, and whose new
book focuses on how to break free from email and
social-media addiction. So where’s a good place to
start with Jocelyn’s insights? ‘Hacking Habits: HowTo
Make New Behaviors Last For Good’ (you can find it
at 99u.com).
Cal Newport
Cal is the man (and considerable intellect) behind
Study Hacks:Decoding Patterns of Success—a blog that covers
everything you need to know about productive,
valuable and meaningful work in an increasingly
distracted digital age. He popularised the term and
literally wrote the book on ‘deep work’, which refers
to applying focused chunks of time on projects
without distractions such as email and social media.
(Paradoxically, a million miles from BJ Fogg’sTiny
Habits. But a useful complementary component for
anybody road-testing habit design.)
Kelly McGonigal
‘Willpower’, as defined by psychologist Kelly
McGonigal, is ‘the ability to do what you really
want to do when part of you really doesn’t want to
do it’. Kelly says that humans experience conflicts
between impulse and self-control, examples of which
include the urge to be sarcastic, to complain or to
procrastinate. Her extensive research, subsequent
writing and broadcasting on the subject can help us
all become what she calls ‘willpower scientists’ and
lead fuller, more productive lives.
Jane McGonigal
Smart family, or what? Jane is Kelly’s sister, but
among many things, she’s an author who advocates
the use of mobile and digital technology to channel
positive attitudes. She’s also the CCO of SuperBetter,
the science-backed app created by game designers
that enables users to bring the same psychological
strengths displayed in games into their real
lives—such as optimism, creativity, courage and
determination.
So there you have it: 4 wise men, 4 wise women,
many wise words.

Sometimes projects start to lag.
Sometimes we want to put things
off, go to the pub, watch some
mindless telly or get lost on
Instagram.
And that’s okay, every once in a
while.
But exercise caution when you
allow yourself to slack off.
When you choose not to show up
and do the work.
Remember this parable.
An old Cherokee chief was
teaching his grandson about life.
‘A fight is going on inside me,’ he
said to the boy.
‘It is a terrible fight and it is
between 2 wolves.
‘One is evil
—
he is anger, envy,
sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance,
self-pity, guilt, resentment,
inferiority, lies, false pride,
superiority, self-doubt and ego.
‘The other is good
—
he is joy,
peace, love, hope, serenity,
humility, kindness, benevolence,
empathy, generosity, truth,
compassion and faith.
‘This same fight is going on inside
you
—
and inside every other
person, too.’
The grandson thought about it
for a minute and then asked his
grandfather,
‘Which wolf will win?’
The old chief simply replied,
‘The one you feed.’
Two
wolves
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Behaviour Design / Two wolves

66
Investing time and energy into a project you care
about will complicate your life.And your habitual
responses to inevitable mental and emotional
challenges can derail you or prepare you for future
complications.
Infusing your side project with mindful awareness
helps tilt the odds of success in your favour.
I don’t mean trying to force relaxation into your
agitation. I’m talking about exercising your capacity
for thriving, even outside your comfort zone.
Developing the attentional skills required to feel
more at home in discomfort is a side project worth
investing in.
‘Problem solving mode’ is important, but it locks us
into narrative constraints. Side projects can seem like
one battle-filled chapter after another, with an endless
queue of dragons to slay and very little time spent
hanging out in the castle.
In this mode, it’s easy to view unwanted emotions
as additional opponents.We instinctively attempt
to defend ourselves against frustration, fear and
vulnerability. But when we feed them with our
resistance, they just get stronger.
Stealing an insight from the ‘keep my enemies closer’
playbook, maybe we can conserve a bit of creative
energy by deciding not to fight emotional discomfort
now and then.
The mindful
side project
INCORP ORAT E DISCOMFORT
DARON L ARSON

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Behaviour Design / The mindful side project
WELCOME
UNCERTAINTY
For example, when you notice that you’re feeling
nervous in anticipation of a pitch meeting, you might
say to yourself,‘This is how it feels to be nervous
about pitching an idea I care about,’ and then give
yourself a few seconds or minutes to actually feel
what it feels like in your body.
You can apply this to any emotional flavour that you
typically try to talk yourself out of.
Disrupting your default responses to discomfort
erodes the problem of living inside a story.
You gradually begin to find that you feel more at
home in the messy, unfinished business of real life.
It’s easy to underestimate how much confusion
exists between where we are and where we hope to
be one day.
When you find yourself bogged down by a lack
of clarity, try to ease up on finding a solution.
See if it’s possible to welcome the uncertainty as a
necessary aspect of any side project worthy of your
commitment.
When you spot it, pause and say to yourself,‘This
is how it feels to not have an answer right now.’
It takes practice to get better at not being certain.
It’s a taste the mind has to reacquire from childhood.
But consider that finding answers might depend on
getting better at insisting on them once in a while.
• This is how it feels to learn a new skill.
• This is how it feels to stretch beyond my
current ability.
• This is how it feels to dive into an intimidating
problem.
Daron Larson practises and shares
attention exercises that support feeling
more at home in the messiness of real life.
He coaches individuals and groups,
using an attentional fitness approach to
mindful awareness. Daron enjoys working
with people who are new to mindfulness
or have given up on it because they’re
convinced they’re doing it wrong—an idea
he got to explore in his TEDx talk titled
‘Don’t Try to Be Mindful’.
athomeinyourlife.com

Fear of missing out?
Yikes.
It’s a problem many of us wrestle
with.
But what if we just dropped the
rope, let go of the struggle and
switched our focus?
To the joy of missing out.
JOMO.
The joy of not trying to keep up
with every new app, update and
trend.
‘FOMO is a powerful motivator.
It pushes us toward browser
windows with 14 open tabs
and inboxes filled with loads
of unread emails. But while
that fear is a powerful hedge
against complacency, it robs us
of the headspace we need for
bigger thoughts about long-term
projects.What we have to learn is
the joy of missing out. Essentially,
the disciplined pursuit of less.’
Embrace JOMO.
Get more done.
Stop arsing about with things
that don’t really matter.
Get time on your side.
Bring focus and energy to your
side project.
And see your productivity
flourish.
69
Behaviour Design / From FOMO to JOMO
From FOMO
to JOMO
gregmckeown.com
– Greg McKeown, author of
Essentialism:The Disciplined Pursuit
of Less

70
When you’re trying to get better at something, it’s
hard to be consistent.And skipping one day makes it
easier to skip the next.
So how do you fight it?
One system that’s gotten pretty popular is called
‘No Zero Days’. It originally came from the depths of
reddit—but really, it’s good stuff.
The movement began with a lone comment by
redditor ryans01, in response to a post by someone
going through a bit of downward spiral. In it, ryans01
offered some basic guidelines for anyone dealing with
the ‘ever circling vortex of self-doubt and frustration’.
The comment read:‘There are no more zero days.
What’s a zero day? A zero day is when you don’t do
a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or
goal or want or whatever you got going on. No more
zeros. I’m not saying you gotta bust an essay out every
day, that’s not the point.The point I’m trying to make
is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself,
that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO
system.’
Brilliant.
But this idea of not letting a single day pass without
doing something towards your project is also backed
by one of our favourite comedians. (Though he calls it
something different.)
Enter Jerry Seinfeld.
Don't break
the chain
When asked if he had any tips for aspiring comics,
Jerry said that the way to be a better comic is to create
better jokes and the way to create better jokes is to
write every day.
Seems simple enough.
But his advice also had a leverage technique for when
you just don’t feel like it.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1. He gets a big wall calendar that has a whole
year on one page.
Step 2. He hangs it on a prominent wall in his home.
Step 3. He gets a big red magic marker and keeps it at
arm’s length.
Step 4. For each day that he writes, he puts a big red X
over that day.
And that’s it.
‘After a few days, you'll have a chain. Just keep at it
and the chain will grow longer every day.You'll like
seeing that chain, especially when you get a few
weeks under your belt.Your only job next is to not
break the chain.’
Daily action builds habit. It gives you practice.Which
leads to expertise.Ya know, that place where small
improvements become large improvements.
Forget zero days.
Don’t break the chain.

71
Behaviour Design / Don't break the chain

72
SYSTEMS VS GOALS
In How to Fail at Almost Everything
and Still Win Big:Kind of the Story of
My Life, Scott Adams talks about
using systems instead of setting
goals.
And he pulls no punches saying,
‘Goals are for losers, systems are
for winners.’
So what is a system? It’s
something you do on a regular
basis that increases your odds
of happiness in the long run,
regardless of the immediate
outcome.
One of the ways he illustrates
what this means is through a side
project that he started: blogging.
When he first started blogging,
Scott was often asked what his
goal was. Because, well, it doubled
his workload and only upped his
income 5%. From the outside, it
seemed like a waste of his time.
But he viewed blogging as a
system, rather than a goal.
He explains that writing is a
skill that requires practice, so
the first part of his system was
practising. He didn’t know what
the practising was for, really, but
that’s what made it a system and
not a goal.
He was moving from a place
of low odds (being an out-of-
practice writer) to a place of good
odds (a well-practised writer with
higher visibility).
The second part of his blogging
system was a sort of research and
development. He would write on
a variety of topics and see which
ones got the best responses. He’d
also write in different ‘voices’ and
look at the same response.
When the Wall Street Journal took
notice of the blog, they asked
him to write a few guest features.
Because of his practise, and his
knowledge of favoured topics
and tones, the guest articles were
popular.They weren’t money-
changers, but they fit within his
system of public practice.
From here, he attracted the
attention of book publishers and
eventually got a book deal.Then
the book deal generated speaking
requests, and his blogging
‘payday’ finally arrived, even
though he never had a specific
path or end goal.
Scott says that his problem with
goals is that they’re limiting.That
if you focus on one particular
goal, yeah, your odds of achieving
that are better than if you were
goal-less. But you’ll also miss out
on other opportunities that might
have been far better than your
goal.
So systems allow you to move
from a game with low odds to a
game with better odds.
Where you are less likely to lose
opportunities to tunnel vision.
Working in a system allows you to
constantly scan for opportunity.
Although there are certain times
when goals are useful, most of us
have no idea where we’ll be in 5
years, what opportunities might
come our way, or what we’ll want
or even need by then. So our best
bet is to move to a game with
better odds. In Scott’s words:
‘That means living someplace
that has opportunities, paying
attention to your health,
continuously upgrading your
skills, networking and perhaps
dabbling in lots of different areas.’
blog.dilbert.com
Footnote | Of course, when Scott started
blogging, he already had a growing
reputation and income as a cartoonist.
But before he was established, he was a
hapless office worker dreaming of being
a cartoonist. He’d wake up at 4am to draw
before his commute, then work all day in
a ‘cubicle prison’ and go home to work on
the side project that would soon become
Dilbert.
As US businesses downsized in the 90s,
the fame of Dilbert grew because of its
satirical take on technology, the workplace
and the company issues of Silicon Valley.

T H E BEST TIME TO START YOUR
P RO JECT WAS A YE AR AGO.
T HE NEXT BEST TIME IS NOW.
(With apologies to the original Chinese tree-planting proverb.)
73

Where does it go? How can we get more of it? And how should we
use it? We didn’t know either, so we consulted some of the experts.
The following pages look at how to be productive, reclaim dead time,
schedule your tasks and handle time-wasters. But they also deal with
the different types of time, and the different ways to view and
savour it. Because, yeah we’re busy, but we’re also human.
TIME

76
We live in an age of distraction.
There’s not much we can do about that. But we can
choose how we spend our hours.
Sure, we spend most of our time working, socialising,
studying, exercising, cooking, eating, commuting,
reading and sleeping. But we also spend our fair share
watchingTV and staring at our devices.
And no matter how much we love scrolling through
Facebook, watching cat videos and binge-watching
Netflix documentaries… our biggest complaint is not
having enough time. So something’s gotta give.
Productivity means taking a long, honest look at how
we’re spending our days and identifying the time-
wasters (i.e. the activities that aren’t contributing to
our systems).Then cutting those bad boys out.
Although there’s no magic formula for getting more
hours in the day, Zdravko Cvijetic has a few ideas on
how to eliminate procrastination and become more
productive.And we should probably listen, seeing as
he’s the highly respected entrepreneur behind Zero
To Skill.
So here’s our take on his principles.
How to be
productive
Work towards something.
We’ve already talked about the importance of systems,
but let’s break that down a bit more. ’Cause if you’re
not working towards something, it’s easy to waste
time.
When it comes to putting systems in place, there are
tons of guidelines (and opinions). So let’s keep things
simple.
Focus on the year ahead and the main areas of your
life (work, health, relationships, personal growth,
travel, etc).Which areas could benefit from a system?
Write them down and choose one skill that you
would like to improve in each area.
Now, choose the one that’s most important to you.
Then re-write the remaining in order of importance.
This sets up your priorities for the entire year.
List all of the activities that you think will help.There
is no limit.This list can be as long as you like.
Then ask yourself the following question:
‘If I could only do one thing on that list all day long,
which item would add the most value for my time?’
Once you’ve chosen, select a second and third task.
Again, this sets your priorities.
USE Y OUR T IM E MORE EFFECT IVELY
D EFINE HIGH L EVERAGE ACT IVIT IES
TO IMP ROVE Y OUR S KIL L S

PEOPLE ARE GOING
TO WANT YOUR TIME.
THAT’S THE ONLY THING
YOU CAN’T BUY. I CAN
BUY ANYTHING I WANT,
BASICALLY, BUT I CAN’T
BUY TIME.
‘
Time / How to be productive
77
–WARREN BUFFETT
’

78
Schedule a meeting with yourself. Focus on your top
priority and practice your high leverage activities.You
can even schedule 2-3 of these each day. Stay focused
on the most important tasks.
Know how you’re going to start your day.
Your rituals should come from the activities you’ve
defined above, and should also allow you some ‘you
time’.
Example: If you want to improve your writing, a high
leverage activity could be to write an article every
week, while your daily ritual could be to write 30-60
minutes each morning.
Your time is best utilised when it’s broken up into
bursts. The PomodoroTechnique uses this approach.
Try it out. It’s a time-management tool that structures
your schedule into 25 minutes of work, followed by 5
minutes of break.This will keep you relaxed, but also
highly focused in those 25 minutes.
We have way too many meetings. Each lasting 30-60
minutes. Instead of entering the pointless ones, ask
what the desired outcome is.And if there isn’t one,
ask to be excused until they need you to discuss your
area of expertise.
Everybody has their own flow. Know what gets you in
the zone.
Tip: Find music that works for you, even if that means
listening to the same song or playlist on repeat.
Dedicate one day a week to do the following:
• Drink water (500ml):Your body just went 6-8
hours without it.
• Get a small win: Do something that will make
you feel proud (even something as simple as
making the bed).
• Exercise: Hit the gym, do some yoga, go for a
walk/jog, swim a few laps.Anything.
• Delegate, eliminate and automate:We usually
think that we need to do everything on our
own.We might be able to, but we don’t have to.
Out of all the activities you have to do, look
at the ones that aren’t high leverage. Of those
items, decide what can be delegated to
someone else.
• Grocery shopping
• Apartment cleaning
• De-cluttering
CRE ATE A MORNING RITUA L WORK IN B URST S
SAY NO TO MEET INGS
THAT DON' T HAVE A
D EFINED OUTCOM E
GET IN T HE ZONE
BUL K-UP ON TAS KS
BLOCK TIME

Time / How to be productive
79
Keep your life as simple as possible. Learn to say no.
In return, you are saying yes to yourself.
Not every minute of your life should be planned out.
After a productive week of work, reward yourself with
a lazy couple of hours. Consider it a cheat day.
If you’re brave enough, try ‘Amish hour’. For the hour
before you go to sleep, turn off your laptop, phone
and other electronic devices.Take the time to read,
write or talk.
Sit down for 30 minutes at the end of each week
and reflect.What was productive? Focus more on
that.What wasn’t productive? Eliminate, delegate
or automate.
Remember:You won’t be perfect. But you shouldn’t
strive to be. Focus on the hour that’s ahead and make
it count. Consistency is what’s important. Choose the
techniques that fit you and start.
This is pretty self explanatory.Also, don’t check your
email more than 2 times a day.
SAY NO TO T HINGS T HAT AREN' T
SUP P ORT ING Y OUR GOAL S
RE WARD Y OURS EL F
D EVEL OP A NIGHT RIT UAL
E VAL UAT E Y OUR RES ULT S
SAY NO TO EM AIL UNT IL Y OU FINIS H
YOUR M ORNING RIT UAL

80
DAVID HIEAT T
A good mantra for a start-up is to ‘fail fast’.
Prototype early. Release a minimum viable product.
If the customer thinks it sucks, kill it. If they like it,
refine it. Iterate, iterate and iterate again until you
reach a point where the customer loves what you do.
In the tech world, this works. In the tech world, speed
matters.
It is indeed better to find out your idea sucks as fast
as you humanly can than to spend the next 5 years
working on something that will ultimately send you
to a pauper’s grave. But failing fast isn’t just a mantra
to save you money. It is a mantra to save you your
most important asset: time.
You can make more money but not more time.Time
matters in the tech world.You want to release your
idea before someone else does. Being first matters.
Being able to update a bug quickly matters. Being
able to code faster than your rival matters.Yup, speed
matters in the tech world.A lot.
But where the ‘fail fast’ mantra falls down is with side
projects.
Side projects are ‘labours of love’.You know, those
ideas that just won’t go away.Those little ideas in the
back of your head that just keep bugging you.That
keep gnawing away at you in your quiet moments.
Well, those ideas just want you to commit some time
to them.They want to make their way into the world.
For me, the best way to make these ideas happen is
to treat them as side projects. I like side projects, as a
different set of rules apply:
1.They don’t have to provide you with a living.
You can still eat if they fail.
2.They don’t have a deadline.And as there is no time
pressure, you don’t revert to your usual formula.
You try new things.You experiment.You take risks.
3.They are a labour of love.You provide the ‘labour’.
And you provide the ‘love’. So when you spend
time on it, it is because you really want to.That
keeps you coming back and pushing it on.
That’s important.This thing will require you to
keep plugging away at it, maybe for years.
Love pays well in the end. But in the early years,
it doesn’t pay at all.
What you have to give your side project is your
time, your belief in it, your refusal to quit.You are its
guardian.You are making sure it grows up to be the
beautiful thing you want it to be.You know, how you
saw it in your head from day 1.
You are letting it grow up protected from the harsh
world of putting food on the table and meeting
deadlines and targets. It will do that for you one day. It
will do that in spades. But right now, it is just a child.
It wants to play around for a bit. It needs time to work
out its place in this world.
Patience is your biggest gift to it.
Side projects are the opposite to the mantra of
‘failing fast’. Side projects are all about ‘succeeding
slowly’.
What made me think about all this was a few years
back, I found myself in a hop barn in California
listening toTina Roth Eisenberg (better known as
@swissmiss) speak at Do USA.And she spoke about
how all the main projects in her life started out as side
The art of
succeeding
slowly

The Side Project Report.pdf

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