What About Bob? is one of my favorite movies. Bill Murray plays Bob Wiley, a man with a list of phobias as long as your arm. Richard Dreyfuss plays Dr. Leo Marvin, a self-important psychiatrist who has just published a book called Baby Steps. The premise: you conquer hard things by breaking them into the smallest possible forward moves. You don’t try to leave the building. You try to take a baby step toward the door. Then a baby step through it. Then a baby step toward the elevator.
The movie is hilarious and you should watch it. Underneath the slapstick, it’s a hell of an explainer for how to make real progress on something that feels too big.
Baby steps is one of my tropes. It’s not the same as “go slow to go fast”. That one is about preparing. Not rushing. Measure twice, cut once. Baby steps is what you do once you’ve started. It’s about how you move.
Baby steps means moving forward one step at a time, deliberately, and not getting lost staring at the horizon. The horizon is where you want to end up. Looking at it doesn’t get you there. Looking at it gets you frozen.
Baby steps means staying on the step you’re taking. If you’re an hour into a feature and notice something else is broken, finish the step. Note the broken thing. Come back to it later. The work doesn’t get done by trading steps. It gets done by taking them.
Baby steps means shipping a change that makes things better, even when it doesn’t solve the whole problem. Better than yesterday is the bar. Perfect is another way of staring at the horizon.
You take the step in front of you. Then you take the next one. Eventually you look up and you’re somewhere you couldn’t see from where you started.
That’s the whole thing.
