Today and Future You
After reading “Fun is Important”, which also linked to “What I Wish” and “My Worst Opinion,” Spencer wrote back to tell me how much he enjoyed all of the linked references in these whatever-they-ares. It’s “obviously intentional,” he noted (which it is), and “drives my engagement and the value I receive” (which is why we do it). But he was curious what the system for generating all of the references was? “Memory, software, something else?”
I was a little embarrassed to write him back and tell him that while we should probably have an automated solution at this point, it’s mostly our managing editor SBGW’s and my institutional knowledge plus a spreadsheet. But I told him that it’s probably true (because I hope it is) that a lot of things that should be or get automated start in a spreadsheet.
He wrote back to that and said that that idea would be good fodder for this forum. And I replied that great minds think alike because I was already writing it up!
And that’s how this whatever-it-is started but where it’s going is that the dirty little secret of the Unqualified Opinions archival spreadsheet is that the documentation gets worse the farther back you go. In other words, if you want to know about what we published here in Season Five, the spreadsheet will give you the title, the link, the date it was sent out both internally and externally, what readers both internally and externally thought of it, how many people read it, whether or not and how they engaged with it, whether it was about capital, opportunities or people, and what the gist and illustration were. And having all of that documentation makes it really efficient to link back to them in the future, repurpose them strategically, and put the books together when it comes time to do that (volume four will be available exclusively at Main Street Summit!).
If you go back to the Season One tab, however, all the spreadsheet captured was the dates, title, link, internal feedback, and how many people read it. In other words, when Sarah and I think there might be an opportunity to link back to something we wrote in Season One, we spend a lot of time clicking on the links based on the titles and crossing our fingers that we find what we’re looking for (Google also helps). In other words, today-me wishes past-me had documented Season One better.
Not unrelated, we were walking through one of our businesses with a potential advisor and she asked about a seven-figure writedown it took several years ago. I had a vague recollection of what that was and why we did it, but certainly not sufficient recall to explain it to the potential advisor without going back and doing a bunch of research. Thankfully Danny (then a financial partner, but now a Director on our Investing Team…congratulations Danny!) produced a memo that past-Danny had written that thoroughly explained what we did and why. And all we had to do was pass that memo along to the potential advisor.
So I said, “That was a great idea by past-Danny.”
And today-Danny said, “I’m appreciative of past-Nikki for making me do it.” Because like me, Danny had also already forgotten a lot of the details.
The point is that documenting things in real time is really helpful and valuable to future-you, but that today-you typically won’t take the time to do it until after a future-today-you gets frustrated that past-you didn’t do it and starts doing it going forward. Or unless your boss (shoutout Nikki!) tells you to do it. Or if today-you is smart enough to remember ahead of time that if what you’re doing now has any chance of future longevity and success, you’re going to wish you documented – and documented well – from the beginning.
– Tim
