Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

by Tony Fadell

I needed to calm down. I needed to find space. I needed to prioritize. Everyone thought I was crazy—and many still do—but here’s what I did: I took several sheets of paper with me everywhere. They had all the top milestones in front of us for each of the disciplines—engineering, HR, finance, legal, marketing, facilities, etc.—and everything we needed to do to reach those milestones. Every top-level question that I had was on those papers. So when I was in a meeting or talking to someone, I could quickly scan it. What are my top issues? What issues do our customers have? What’s the current roadblock for this person’s team? What are the next major milestones? What date commitments did our teams make? And then there was the best part—the ideas. Whenever someone had a great idea that we had to table for the moment—an improvement to the product or the organization—I’d write it down. So right next to the list of that week’s to-dos and tasks, there was a working library of all the things we couldn’t wait to begin. I’d regularly read them to myself and see if they still applied. It kept me inspired and excited and focused on the future. And it was great for the team. They saw that I paid attention to their ideas and made sure we kept thinking about them. The only way for me to capture all of it—good ideas, priorities, roadblocks, the dates that people promised to deliver, and the major internal and external heartbeats ahead—was to take notes in every meeting. Longhand. Not on a co...