Project Partners: make things. with people.

General overview of concept

This post was written collaboratively with my friend Kai Rathmann. The reason for this will become apparent very shortly.

The thesis of this post is essentially: make things with people. We want to introduce a new-ish framing for how to relate to people, called “project partners”. A project partner is someone that you are doing (or have done) a project with. The project can be large, but doesn’t have to be. The key is that you have the experience of working together towards a specific, external, common goal.

Doing a small project with someone is great for a number of reasons:

• You get to know each other’s work style.
• You learn more about your own work style.
• You deepen emotional rapport and bond with the other person.
• You might be more likely to finish a project if you have someone else keeping you accountable.
• You end up with a thing that you can point to and say, “we did this!”
• Relatedly, it makes a great story if someone asks “so how do you and Person know each other?”

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