Scott Berkun

The life goal: writing books

The author page in the back of The art of project management has this photo.

This represents a life goal: to write enough good books to fill the shelf. I’ve measured its width and according to my calculations I need to write 20-25 books to fill it. Since the artofpm took a year to write, working nearly full time at it, I expect to be working towards this goal for the rest of my life. I won’t publish anything I’m not proud of so I’m after quality too, not just volume. If I die with a half full shelf of good books, I’ll still be a happy man (as happy as a dead man can be).

I think this goal is as insane as you probably do – but when I quit Microsoft in 2003 I made a long list of possibilites: this was the least insane. Just like everything else, insanity is relative.

Writing forces many good things to happen for me: most interesting perhaps is that I have to confront my own bullshit. I can’t just complain about things I don’t like or handwave about how I’d make something better: instead I have to sit down and try to do it myself. And if I do it right, other people benefit from the effort.

I’ll be writing more on this blog about the goal and my approach. If this interests you let me know: if not I’ll keep most of it to myself :) Any encouragement is encouraged and thanks for reading so far.

Berkun plan 2004

It’s been 3 months since I left Microsoft – I promised Jill a “Scott 2004 plan” and I finished it last night. 3 pages long. Plan was approved by Jill today (she almost said it was good – high praise indeed). I have marital support now – woohoo!

The primary goal is books. My life goal is to fill the bookshelf near my desk with books – one’s that I’ve written. Since committing to this plan I admit I’ve studied the shelf carefully – shelves are BIG. This particular shelf is 15-20 books wide. If it takes a year to write a book, it will take me nearly 3 decades to finish this commitment. (Unless I’m allowed to write in crayon, in big 50pt Hellvetica, with one or two letters per page. If that’s allowed I may be in good shape after all).

I have a long list of book ideas – but the London project is still the best place to start. As slow as it’s been going, it still makes the most sense for several reasons.