Hardik’s User Manual (Work) 📔

Intro

This is a living document that helps others understand how to best interact and work with me. It includes the following:

Emphasis on “living”. I’m putting this out to the world but know I am–and aim to always be–a work-in-progress.

Email / Slack / Text for communications that can tolerate a few hours delay.
If its more urgent, call me.
For issues that require a low-latency back-and-forth, impromptu meeting is preferred.
Communicate with me collaboratively. I get pig headed when people tell me what to do, or arrogantly assert they know best (although I realise the people that do this probably don’t realize it themselves!).

I don’t chafe at meetings like many. I’m a fan of high-bandwidth meetings with a clear target. Meetings are great for sharing/ingesting summarized state (e.g. project status), reaching a mutual understanding (even if people disagree with each other), debate, and building rapport.
Meetings without notetaking are pointless.
I enjoy brainstorming in group meetings. But from past experience, I’ve found a lot of meeting bandwidth gets consumed in giving people background. If we’re going to engage in a freestyle discussion, lets come into it “warm” after doing the pre-work.
Meetings are NOT a good place to make decisions. If something contentious needs a decision, it’s best to use a meeting to exchange perspectives, discuss trade-offs, and agree on a timeframe for reaching a decision. Ultimately, the alternatives and tradeoff-analysis should be written down somewhere and someone can use that to make a final call offline (or in a follow-up meeting).

Each day, I usually work from 10 am to 9 pm. Of course, this is not rigid and my social schedule does overlap with my work schedule, once or twice a week.

I work 6 days a week, Sunday through Friday. I end up working 60-70 hours per week, which I can sustain indefinitely.

I accept that work is non-linear as a founder so I’m willing to adapt my schedule to pressing demands.
Saturdays are my flex days, which I usually protect for R&R. Or I’ll work at a casual pace or engage in “big picture” thinking. I go by feel. But if needed, I can work through a Saturday.
Other flex time: One weekend a month, one week a quarter – Scheduled around milestones / sprints.

My beliefs on this subject are explained here.
Working 70+ hours per week means sacrificing those other areas of my life that serve the long-term. These sorts of sprints are expected but difficult to continue for more than a few weeks without addressing the life debt that piles up.

I tend to trust people by default to know what they are doing. I do not like to intervene or micromanage — unless they ask for help.
I love to be challenged with different or counter intuitive points of view.

Best way to convince me is to convince me that you’ve explored many alternatives and weighed the trade-offs, and logically arrived at an opinion with honest recognition of the things you don’t know.
I’m decisive when it comes to reversible decisions and contemplative when making decisions that are one-way doors. I prefer some solitude to think through options for the latter kind of decisions before finalizing a choice.

Debate: If meetings are where ideas are shared, I use debate as a critical tool to separate the good ones from the bad ones. I’m not a very opinionated person but I appreciate how debate can get us to desired outcomes faster. If you see me challenge an idea, it doesn’t mean I disagree with it or I’m being negative — I’m just testing its strength.
Process: I always say, plan beats no plan–even if the plan is wrong. People assume that my compulsion towards process stems from a need for everything to be logical and meticulously defined. Rather, I just like to apply some rigor in establishing goals, specifying strategies, and spotlight what is known and what is unknown—All of which maybe loosely outlined. I believe in being methodical, testing assumptions, and failing fast.

Being micromanaged.
Complaining without an intention to problem-solve.
People who lack self-awareness and are not looking to improve.
I detest having to wait for late arrivals to a meeting. But at the same time, I’m the least punctual human being. I know, it’s hypocritical. But please respect my time and don’t be late to our meeting. I’ll sincerely try to do the same.