I’ve been working on PZ blocks for a good long while now, but sometime early in the summer I realized I needed a deadline. Or, to be perfectly honest, it was my therapist who realized I needed a deadline. Once the suggestion was put to me, it seemed obvious that the deadline had to be Wordcamp US, toward the end of August.
What would happen when I hit the deadline? Well, the PeakZebra blocks would be for sale here on the site, as a package, rather than as assorted pieces of consulting projects. The store would be open, and I’d give away some small, plush zebras, each with a QR tag dangling from one ear.
And that day is coming in five days as I write this. I’m going to pull it off.
The point of the exercise
The deadline is a way to tighten my focus, right down to the essentials. As the deadline approaches, it gets increasingly easy to see what’s reasonable to do and what really isn’t. It’s easy to see what changes have to be made to the game plan (mostly cutting things out and saving them for later) to arrive punctually with something, whatever may have been sacrificed, still delivers the key objectives.
So, five days left as I write this. The lesson for me right now is that it’s not just about having the first set of blocks ready for you to build applications with, but also having the right pieces of supporting infrastructure.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, but there has to be some documentation. I don’t have to have a sophisticated checkout process, but I do need to make sure I can handle the few variations in what people might sign on for.
The question is always: will the package deliver clear value if I cut out this or that. It’s really startling how often the answer is: it will, at least for starting out.
For me, the really huge payoff for reaching the deadline is that it establishes a point at which the first release was done. It draws a line between the mess of trying to create something and having arrived at a version of that creation. You can’t slide backwards from there once that line is drawn, you can only fill in features and head toward the next deadline.
It keeps the anxiety in check to remind myself that on the 24th the WordPress world will be focused on Wordcamp, not at all (not yet) on PeakZebra and what the PZ blocks have to offer. I’ll get up early and drive down to National Harbor. There’s a whole bunch of sessions I’m excited to check out.