If you want to know the truth about what you’ve built, you have to ship it.

We don’t believe in busyness at Basecamp. We believe in effectiveness. How little can we do? How much can we cut out? Instead of adding to-dos, we add to-don’ts.

It’s easier to fuck up something that’s working well than it is to genuinely improve it.

every best practice should come with a reminder to reconsider.

the further away you are from the fruit, the lower it looks. Once you get up close, you see it’s quite a bit higher than you thought. We assume that picking it will be easy only because we’ve never tried to do it before.

rearranging your daily patterns to find more time for work isn’t the problem. Too much shit to do is the problem.

Culture is what culture does. Culture isn’t what you intend it to be. It’s not what you hope or aspire for it to be. It’s what you do. So do better.

Taking someone’s time should be a pain in the ass. Taking many people’s time should be so cumbersome that most people won’t even bother to try it unless it’s REALLY IMPORTANT!

after that brief period of exploration at the beginning of a project—it’s time to focus in and get narrow. It’s time for tunnel vision!