bricks and balloons.

Do the impactful work. Even if it's not seen. Eventually, it stacks.

I've been thinking lately about the type of work I want to do (and not do).

You can measure work on 3 dimensions:

Easy vs. Hard

Visible vs. Hidden

Impactful vs. Useless

The best combination is the easy, visible and impactful, the 'quick wins'. Quick wins are fun. They work, everyone gets to high five and feel the fast progress. But the problem with quick wins, is they run out.

And most of the work that's left is hard and impactful or still easy and visible (but useless).

And we are drawn to the easy.

Balloon work is the easy and visible work. It's the slide deck that obscures reality. It's the post of the semi-real story, that feels good or baits engagement. Rather than to go out and do interesting things that make a real story. It's talking about things vs. doing things.

You shoot out the work, and it's shiny and visible. And it gets the response, the dopamine. And it feels good. But balloon work is generally a one hit wonder. The campaign with no hypothesis that worked once and never again. That random post that went viral and generated a wave of low conversion hits.

Because balloon work, does not carry any weight.

Because the purpose of balloons, are to be seen.

Brick work is the mostly hard (invisible) yet impactful work. It's often the work no one sees. It's looking at the data yourself. It's interviewing the customers. It's asking the questions that poke holes in your hypothesis about how the business works, then doing the work to (potentially) prove that hypothesis wrong. It's reading the (whole) book. It's mostly not fun. And it's not glorified.

But the great thing about unseen brick work, is it stacks. Brick by brick, it eventually becomes visible. Like week 12 of a hard fitness program, the hard work shows.

And brick work, does carry weight.

Because the purpose of bricks, is to build.

Stack bricks.