Golden Email #32: Creating a company without becoming a company - Departments & names

Do widely different things, at widely different times, in shorter durations and more focus. R&D - one department I am in sometimes, and do whatever I want. I want all my projects to be side-projects to each other, with no main project.

Let ideas pile up in the back of your head, you don't need to write them down because the good ones will stick, then when time is right bring everything together and execute it all in one moment.

You can't be multiple roles constantly at the same time, because most energy will go towards internal coordination, confusion and bureacracy (in your brain). But you can switch life every few days, or every few weeks, or every few months (maybe even every few years). Then the effects from one area can sometimes also be brought over to the other areas, you get extra energy instead of less. It's nice to do different things. You get smarter by knowing multiple things and not just one.

The one-man band is possible in the 21st century, there are ways to choose between small+simple and big+slow. For example by doing smart things like this, and using the current technology that allows you to get information more efficiently and publish things yourself without a middle man. The advantages you get from knowing about all departments is something you won't get by being a boss to multiple employees where the employees know about the specific details. Don't delegate decisions, but delegate tasks.

Free-flowing is better than bureaucracy. But when a project gets too big, naming the parts makes you understand what the project is. Don’t name them beforehand, figure out what the parts are when you’ve made some things. Maybe after half the project, whenever that is… Write down to expose details, there is always more than you think, your imagination simplifies things but that isn’t reality. Talk it out with others to force clarity, your mind skips over things it sees as obvious, but those things may be the most important.

Don’t be afraid of new bureaucracy arising, you can throw the concepts away after the project, or when they don’t work anymore and confuses more than helps. All tasks are interwoven and there are no clear boundaries or parts of the game, so don’t take the named parts as facts, take them as a help to ease your mind. Start there but be free to go outside them.

/kbrecordzz, 2026-06-11