Great product design requires focus

I love this story from Jony Ive about how Steve Jobs would ask Ive about all the things he said no to.

That’s a really great way to approach product design and product development. We have to say no to things — often really great things. Sometimes it’s not no forever, but it’s no for right now.

Without focus, we take on too much work, we try to design too many things, we start building too many features. And what happens? We half ass (if we are lucky) all of it.

One of the thing Ive learned from Jobs is to say no to things that are great ideas. If you are only willing to say no to bad ideas, you aren’t really saying no:

“What focus means is saying no to something that you would with every bone in your body think is a phenomenal idea and you wake up thinking about it, but you say no to it because you are focusing on something else.”

If we are doing good work, if we are collaborating, if are truly understanding user needs and market opportunities, and we are letting our creative juices flow, we will always have a huge backlog of great ideas. That means we are doing something right!

The more good ideas, the better. But we need to only take on the work that we can truly focus on right now. I coach my designers to focus and deliver.

Focus. Deliver. Focus. Deliver. Focus. Deliver.

Sweat the details that other people don’t even know are details, focus, deliver. You’ll do great work this way.

What are all of the things you have said no to lately?