Quotes by Jason Fried

What you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan.

Its like when youre on hold and a recorded voice comes on telling you how much the company values you as a customer. Really? Then maybe you should hire some more support people so I dont have to wait thirty minutes to get help.

Theres nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.

Dont make up problems you dont have yet. Its not a problem until its a real problem. Most of the things you worry about never happen anyway.The decisions you make today dont need to last forever. If circumstances change, your decisions CAN change. Decisions are temporary.Pay attention to today and worry about later when it gets here. Otherwise, youll waste energy, time and money fixating on problems that may never materialize.~ An excerpt from the awesome book, Rework

Obscurity is a good thing. You can fail in obscurity. It removes the fear of failure.

It wont be as easy, but lots of things that are worth doing arent easy. It just takes commitment, discipline, and, most important, faith that its all going to work out.

Problems can usually be solved with simple, mundane solutions. That means there’s no glamorous work. You don’t get to show off your amazing skills. You just build something that gets the job done and then move on. This approach may not earn you oohs and aahs, but it lets you get on with it.

When you don’t know what you believe, everything becomes an argument. Everything is debatable. But when you stand for something, decisions are obvious.

It’s a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why.

It’s a beautiful way to put it: Leave the poetry in what you make. When something becomes too polished, it loses its soul. It seems robotic.

What do you gain if you ban employees from, say, visiting a social-networking site or watching YouTube while at work? You gain nothing. That time doesn’t magically convert to work. They’ll just find some other diversion.

Think about it this way: If you had to launch your business in two weeks, what would you cut out?

The problem with abstractions (like reports and documents) is that they create illusions of agreement. A hundred people can read the same words, but in their heads, they’re imagining a hundred different things.

Don’t be insecure about aiming to be a small business. Anyone who runs a business that’s sustainable and profitable, whether it’s big or small, should be

If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position hire the best writer. it doesnt matter if the person is marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever, their writing skills will pay off. Thats because being a good writer is about more than writing clear writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. great writers know how to communicate. they make things easy to understand. they can put themselves in someone elses shoes. they know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate. Writing is making a comeback all over our society... Writing is todays currency for good ideas.

We think of computers as smart and powerful machines. But your goldfish is smarter.

Its easy to forget, as a leader, that when employees dont get the wide view, not only does the point of their work escape them, but it can also lead to real frustration. Its hard to feel pride and ownership when you dont understand where things are going.

When youre short on sleep, youre short on patience. Youre ruder to people, less tolerant, less understanding. Its harder to relate and to pay attention for sustained periods of time.

If you ask people where they go when they really need to get work done, very few will respond the office. If they do say the office, theyll include a qualifier such as super-early in the morning before anyone gets in, or I stay late at night after everyones left, or I sneak in on the weekend.

If yesterday was a good days work, chances are youll stay on a roll. And if you can stay on a roll, everything else will probably take care of itself - including not working from the moment you get up in the morning until you nod off to sleep.