#022 - Time for a little preventative maintenance
Welcome to Issue #022 of The Forcing Function - your guide to delivering the right outcomes for your projects and your users.
🗒️ And on a personal note: The underrated importance of maintenance.
🤔 Made me think: Zeno’s Progress.
👨💻 Worth checking out: Peter Capaldi reads a letter from WW1 Captain Reginald John Armes.
🗒️ And on a personal note …
The underrated importance of maintenance.
In a change to regular programming, an abbreviated issue this week.
I’m taking advantage of the Twixmas break to do some much-needed maintenance on this newsletter. That includes:
Completing the setup of this newsletter on Substack as well as finishing off the clean-up of the imported issues.
If you spot anything that’s broken or doesn’t work - please let me know.
Upgrading my workflow that I can generate ideas more systematically and to speed up how I fashion them into a worthwhile issue without sacrificing quality.
Compared to what I’ve been using (see Issue 014 for more details), I’m simplifying down to just use Readwise Reader + Obsidian. More in an upcoming issue but if you have any questions or would like to know more - just comment below.
Writing issues in advance so that I’m no longer working on each issue at the literal last minute.
As always, open to hearing anything that you’d like to me to cover.
Whilst often-deferred, if you don’t maintain your systems, then entropy ensues.
I’ve seen this time and time again on client projects where the compulsion to do the “next new thing” overcomes the need to stabilise what’s been delivered. When that' happens, it’s only a matter of time before a critical bug surfaces. Then it’s all hands on deck not only to fix it but also to clean up the mess it mad.
So, I’m taking heed of those lessons (expensively earned) and applying them here.
“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.”
Abraham Lincoln | 16th President of the United States
Will back back next Thursday with more business analysis insights but, in the meantime, I wish you and your family a very happy new year.
🤔 Made me think
Zeno’s Progress
An amusing take on what happens if you don’t do maintenance and take care of issues that arise.
The lesson here? Make sure that you do preventative maintenance.
PS: The joke is loosely based on Zeno’s paradoxes which essentially posits that an infinite number of things cannot be performed in a finite amount of time.
🧑💻Worth checking out
📺 Peter Capaldi reads a letter from WW1 Captain Reginald John Armes | Letters Live
On Christmas Eve of 1914, five months into World War I, something amazing happened: thousands of British and German troops on the Western Front decided to put down their weapons and greet each other peacefully. For the next few days, 100,000 men, British and German, chatted, exchanged gifts, sang carols, played football. They also, without fear, were able to buried their dead. On the evening of December 24th, the first day of the truce, Captain ‘Jack’ Armes wrote to his wife and described this incredible occurrence.
A timely reminder of this incredible letter - both for the story it tells and for the power of words.
🖖Until next Thursday ...
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For now, thank you so much for reading this week's issue of The Forcing Function and I hope that you have a great day.
PS: Thanks to P for reading drafts for me.
> client projects where the compulsion to do the “next new thing” overcomes the need to stabilise what’s been delivered.
Oh my gosh
Are you spying on me and my customer projects? 😅