Relevant Microdecisions
As I step outside of the world of code these days I am faced with many microdecisions about my services. Some are:
- Come up with a relevant subject for emails
- Require credit card upfront or not
- Format of tweets (and when to tweet)
- Format of blog posts (and when to post)
- When to announce a new feature, e.g. right away or wait for the next newsletter
I call them micro because I tend to make those decisions pretty quickly, maybe by taking inspiration from some other popular service or product that I am using. I am aware that big companies has teams of people dedicated to the content of emails or social media campaigns. And, in spite of the fact that I mark them as micro, they are relevant and they require my creative juice.
To avoid sweating these kind of decisions, I tend to keep it very simple. For example, sometimes I ask a few friends to proof read the Podrover newsletter. The pitch is pretty similar every time, “it’s less than 200 words”. And they do it, for free. Thanks :)
I don’t write walls of text, because I know people won’t read it and I know it’s going to require a lot of time that I usually don’t have. I think I spend more time creating small videos or gifs, like in this post, because I think they clearly show a feature or a modification. And even thos are very short and to the point.
As for other strategic decisions like sponsoring a conference I go with my guts. I mull over it a bit, maybe a few days, and then I decide.
I tend to favor the attitude that I am making the best decision given the current context. Otherwise, I’d probably ponder too much, until it’s too late. Or even worse, I’d fall into analysis paralysis.