Evidence-backed guidance for creators and solopreneurs. I study the world's best creators, run experiments, and share what I learn with 58,000+ readers every week.
Non-financial debt
Hey Reader,
In my last job, I was a product manager. I worked closely with the engineering and product design teams, and they would often reference "tech debt" when wed talked about building our software.
"Technical debt" is the hidden cost of implied future rework caused by choosing the faster, easier, short-term solution today. We would take on tech debt because of other constraints – usually a deadline.
Basically, it would come down to this: In order to hit the deadline, we will do things this way, which is faster, but not ideal. The code will be less efficient and less durable. And because of that, we will face challenges down the road when we need to build NEW functionality on top of this.
Sometimes, debt is OK. The entrepreneur who opens a small business loan to get his business off the ground can pay that back (with interest) when the business succeeds. Someday, he's debt free, and the business is profitable. Debt is a tool that can be used.
But if a software team continues to choose to incur more technical debt, eventually they find themselves in a LOT of debt. When you build feature C on top of feature B, and feature B was built on top of feature A...if feature A and B were buit with some debt, the whole system is vulnerable.
Think of it like a house. If you have an issue in your foundation, but instead of truly fixing it you just kept building additions on top of it...you're only going to keep putting the foundation at risk, but the whole house.
So sometimes we would budget time to focus on cleaning up (or paying back) that technical debt. By strengthening the foundation, we were able to build a more robust, sustainable product.
When we talk about debt, we're usually talking about financial debt. But there are lots of flavors of debt.
A few months ago, I felt really limited by MailChimp. And I felt myself taking on debt as I integrated MailChimp deeper into my business. So, I finally took a couple weeks off of writing so that I could focus on cleaning up that debt and moving to ConvertKit.
Lately, I've been feeling limited by the brand I've built for Freelancing School. To be honest, it wasn't even a brand I'd built – I just pulled a lot of the same brand elements from Unreal Collective and chose a font that I liked!
So now, before I build more onto that business, I'm cleaning up that brand debt by working with an agency on a brand project.
Think about your filing or record keeping systems – how many redundant folders do you have? Maybe you don't have a good system of folders at all! As you save more files, that system is going to become more and more brittle because you have organizational debt.
And the worst debt of all is probably relationship debt. Is there a conversation or conflict you're avoiding? Avoiding it is like taking out debt. If you never address the issue or pay back that debt, it will only continue to grow and fester.
Debt can be a useful tool. Debt can help us get from Point A to Point B faster...but debt is meant to be repaid. If you never pay it back, you'll find yourself in a hole and declaring bankruptcy.
Where can you start paying back some debt?
#25: Eric Jorgenson [Curation]
This week we have a unique episode in two respects. First off, today's guest is a creator earlier in his career. And instead of exploring his creative career, we're diving deep into his latest creative project.
And that project is unique as well.
Eric Jorgenson is the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness (also called Navalmanack).
The Almanack is a collection of insight from Naval Ravikant that Eric curated from from Twitter, Podcasts, and Essays over the past decade. And the book is available for the first time today.
Not only is the book available for the first time today, but it's available for free.
In this episode we talk about Eric’s process of creating the book, how he created his own constraints, how he managed to make progress while doing this as a side project, and why he believes Curation opens the door for more books like this.
This month, I'm running a challenge with the Freelancing School community to help you Reclaim Your Time. Each week, I send a video of a tool, system, or process that I leverage in my business to get more out of my time.
If you want to start receiving those emails and videos too, you can opt in here. We had a fantastic discussion Friday morning around Trello vs. Asana, scheduling, time-blocking, and all the fun stuff.
And the first step to getting the most out of your week is planning ahead. It's Sunday, which is a perfect day for you to write down 3-5 priorities for your week that will move you forward.
Here are mine:
- Complete 2+ Creative Elements episode edits
- Rebuild my "About" page
- Record remaining videos for the Reclaim Your Time (RYT) Challenge
Reply and let me know what's on your list!
Cheers,
Jay
Creator Science
Evidence-backed guidance for creators and solopreneurs. I study the world's best creators, run experiments, and share what I learn with 58,000+ readers every week.
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