A classic by DHH & Jason from Basecamp.
At this point a lot this book is obvious to me, but it was a good reminder of all the little things I take for granted working for a nearly all-remote company like GitHub.
My biggest take-away from reading this book was the benefits and necessity of asynchronous communication in remote work. It made me think about my colleague in Japan who I am not a close to as I could be. My tendency to lean on Slack ultimately excludes him.
This book was also an inspiration to focus on improving my writing skills, so that I don’t hesitate to turn to writing as a communication tool. I find myself falling back to “easier” mediums like Slack and, worse, video calls, when they are ephemeral and often lack critical thought.
The idea of remote work elevates an uncommon perspective, an uncommon ideal: productivity & happiness are all the matters. Hours on the clock, time in meetings, etc. don’t matter. And yet we optimize our organizations and systems to incentivize these ultimately unhappy and unproductive practices.