The Not-To-Do list

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Having the company-wide Not-To-Do list is as important as having our To-Do lists. Propose items on the list as comments, the ones that get the most 👍 get published in the Handbook.

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Don't be online all the time

At a minimum, you should have 2x 2 hours every day when you are offline from Slack and emails to do deep work. Embrace the silence knowing if the roof is on fire, we have your mobile number, so there is no need to check in every 15 minutes. The exception is support and sales staff who should do this one or twice a week, but definitely every week!

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Don't assume

Assumption is the mother of all fuckups. Don't believe things are how you are told they are. Pry them open and see for yourself. Dig deep.

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Don't ask for permission

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission. Also, you are not interrupting someone else's deep work.

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Don't ask a question that can be answered with one Google search

If the reply to your question is a link to lmgtfy.com, then you're doing it wrong.

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Don't get stuck on problems that can be alleviated by spending a bit of money

Losing time and focus on having your disk full all the time is unacceptable. Disk space is cheap today, replace your disk or buy an additional one. Not being able to share your screen on Zoom due to slow connection is also unacceptable. Find a better provider and throw money at their face.

Your mindset should be: If I have a problem that I can throw money at, I don't have a problem.

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Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by busyness

A riff on Hanlon's razor. What it means is this: if someone fails to reply to a comment on a Pull Request that is not related to any User Story in the current sprint, or the reply is short & snappy, your first thought should be that person is probably stretched thin for time at the moment and does not have the energy to go deep with this thing that is not even in the current sprint instead of that person is mean to me. Niteans are nice people, we are not mean to each other. We are overworked and edge sometimes though. And then other Niteans help us recognize this and get through it.