I like that your title explicitly calls out "worked for me."
Generally speaking, when it comes to advice, context is ever important. In one context advice may be spot on, but your context may not be my context and that can matter.
For example I often hear good advice about useing SQL. A lot of it is contradictory, which can be confusing. But it turns out that the "right thing to do" is enormously affected by context - are you deploying one DB for one customer, or one each for 1000 customers? Is there a full-time DBA or is your program its own DBA?
It's the same with personal/life advice. How old are you? What kind of job do you have? Are you cash-rich or time-rich? Are there outside stress factors?
For example I don't use an alarm clock on a day to day basis. I let myself sleep till I wake up. That works because I have no morning commitments or responsibilities and flexible work hours. It only works because of my context. Clearly it's useless advice to most people.
When giving advice try and bring context into play. If your context is too different to mine, my advice may be harmful.
When receiving advice dig into the context. If it's too different to yours that advice may be moot, or even harmful.
What works for a bootstrap company does not apply to a VC startup. And very much vice versa.
(question is, is this comment useful if you don't know _my_ context though? :)
> For example I don't use an alarm clock on a day to day basis. I let myself sleep till I wake up. That works because I have no morning commitments or responsibilities and flexible work hours. It only works because of my context. Clearly it's useless advice to most people.
As someone who's 3 year old wakes up and dives into bed next to us somewhere around 6-7am. About 3 hours after the 2 month old has woken for a feed I'm very jealous!
This is what I think about a lot of the "agile development" advice I see on the web.
Projects are different, clients are different, teams are different.
What works for you may not work for me.
Heck, what worked in my last project may not work in this one!
Generally speaking, when it comes to advice, context is ever important. In one context advice may be spot on, but your context may not be my context and that can matter.
For example I often hear good advice about useing SQL. A lot of it is contradictory, which can be confusing. But it turns out that the "right thing to do" is enormously affected by context - are you deploying one DB for one customer, or one each for 1000 customers? Is there a full-time DBA or is your program its own DBA?
It's the same with personal/life advice. How old are you? What kind of job do you have? Are you cash-rich or time-rich? Are there outside stress factors?
For example I don't use an alarm clock on a day to day basis. I let myself sleep till I wake up. That works because I have no morning commitments or responsibilities and flexible work hours. It only works because of my context. Clearly it's useless advice to most people.
When giving advice try and bring context into play. If your context is too different to mine, my advice may be harmful.
When receiving advice dig into the context. If it's too different to yours that advice may be moot, or even harmful.
What works for a bootstrap company does not apply to a VC startup. And very much vice versa.
(question is, is this comment useful if you don't know _my_ context though? :)