8 Lessons for Work, Life, and Everything in Between
Not everything here will apply to you—but at least one thing might stick. I particularly like number 7.
Welcome to the Scarlet Ink newsletter. I'm Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM. Each week I write a newsletter article on tech industry careers and tactical leadership advice.
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As I’ve mentioned in the past, sometimes I end up with a pile of drafts for article ideas. These ideas were good ideas to share, but I didn’t feel they had legs to be entire articles on their own.
So occasionally, I bundle together a bunch of things I’d like to share and toss them into a single article. This is one of those days!
Some of these ideas are about work. Some of them are not at all about work. I hope you enjoy at least one of them!
One - Finish what is in flight.
College hire employees were particularly susceptible to this one. But anyone can fall victim to “oh, that looks more important” syndrome.
I’ve repeatedly seen employees start a new task every few days (or sometimes more than once in a day). They’ll be working on an important feature, but they’ll flip to a recently reported bug to see what’s up. And then they’ll drop the bug research to look into a different bug the on-call is confused about.
What’s tricky about this mistake is that it can feel to the employee like they’re getting a lot done. They’re on so many important tasks. They’re saving the on-call, investigating the most important bug, and they’re working on a critical feature.
But from leadership’s point of view? You’re simply not getting things done. And you’re not paid to do work, you’re paid to get things done.
Finish what you start. Yes, in rare situations, you can flip to work on some emergency. But your default decision should always be to add tasks to your “I’ll do this next” queue, but you don’t change what you’re currently finishing.
This isn’t just true for individuals. I’ve seen entire teams waffle between projects and features and bugs as priorities change. The best teams learn that you shouldn’t change what’s in flight unless it’s absolutely critical and necessary.
And for individuals and teams both, you’ll get pushback. You’ll absolutely have a product manager say, “But this feature needs to be done now!” or your customer service team complain, “But this bug is a big deal!”
Typically, a simple “I’ll absolutely jump on that as soon as I’m done. It’ll be just a few more days” will work wonders. And it’s significantly better for you and your team in the long run.
Two - Spending less isn’t about sacrifice.
When I write about finances, I’ll sometimes mention how we’ve been careful with our spending. We buy used cars, fly economy, rarely go to restaurants, etc.
I’m occasionally asked if it’s “worth it” to “sacrifice” so much.
I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what spending less at our level means.
Some people do experience financial sacrifice in their lives. When they’re unable to feed their kids. Or if they can’t keep a roof over their head. Or if they’re not sure they can afford the gas money to commute to work. That’s a serious sacrifice.
If you have a good job, you can likely meet all your needs in Maslow's hierarchy.
I was an employed person who was able to travel (in coach), eat (mostly from grocery stores), spend time with my family / friends, and fulfill myself with various hobbies (like writing). If you looked at your grandparents at your same age, they’d almost certainly be blown away by the absolute luxury you’re soaked with daily.
I don’t think a lack of yet more luxuries could possibly fall into the definition of sacrifice. If you feel like you’re sacrificing if you save money, it’s a mental framing issue, not a money issue.
Spending less money doesn’t make you less happy, just like spending more money doesn’t make you happier. Spending and happiness are not at all related. We sometimes get a burst of happy hormones when we purchase something, but that’s a weird prehistoric addiction we have to “getting things.”
One of my favorite things is reading a book on my couch with my daughter. With a billion dollars, I’d still enjoy sitting on the couch.
If your favorite hobby is collecting luxury watches or something, I think you should just find a new hobby. I’m judgy like that.