Don't overstuff your product

To prepare for writing and editing the second edition of JFS, I re-read JFS in great detail, (virtual) marker in hand. I marked up the entire PDF in Preview. I even added pages to fit my notes (I had a lot of notes). There were so many things to cut, clarify, expand, rearrange, and soooo many things to add.

Second Product Syndrome is dangerous and one of the key risk factors is overstuffing the product.

That's why one of the most important JFS Principles is Cut Without Remorse.

And so, after a few weeks of letting all those notes compost in the back of my mind, I re-read them — the whole book! — and found myself on a precipice. There was a lot of brand new stuff I had just casually decided I just had to include.

The thing about that new stuff? It's good stuff. Stuff people need to know! Stuff that is highly relevant to JFS the book, as well as JFS the experience. I still want to write, record, or otherwise create that stuff and make it available to people who could really, really use it.

But that doesn't mean I should let it interfere with shipping JFS v2.

Internalizing the principles in JFS doesn't mean you'll never find yourself veering off course. JFS helps you make the hard decisions to get back on.

Here's a real convo I had with Alex about it…

amy: @alex i know you've got a ton of shit on your plate but when/if you have the energy, i wanna float a (small) idea past you

alex: im about to get on a call but float away

amy: ok so as i make a list of all the stuff i wanted to ADD to JFS… i got to thinking… it's too much.

part of what makes JFS so great is it's short and sweet

granted there are actual holes in the process it teaches, and those i should fix, and it needs better bookend content and examples

but maybe all the "troubleshooting" stuff i'm coming up with, the mental mindset lessons, actually belong in a companion edition

aka… the unstick me book

not saying they should ship together (but they could, since i was planning on writing this stuff for book1). but having a third book could be good for us AND it is obvious cross-promo opportunity

alex: very into it, and totally agree that the ADD stuff would be great as its own thing slash complimentary thing.

amy: ADD as in adhd?

or me capitalizing "add" for emphasis

i guess both work rofl

alex: oh sorry lol

i misread. i still agree.

fixing vs adding

amy: i think there should still be SOME mindset and troubleshooting content, but not a huge freaking list of everything that occurs during a project

alex: totally agree

<time passes>

coming back to this a bit and I'm excited about a standalone troubleshooting guide.

Sometimes a product is really two products — but if you try to jam them together, you may end up with zero products, because it's too big, to complex, too unwieldy to ever finish.