REWORK — our New York Times bestselling book about business.

Most business books give you the same old advice: write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you're looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf. REWORK is the perfect playbook for anyone who’s ever dreamed of doing it on their own. Entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and artists who don’t want to starve will all find valuable guidance in these pages.

Full list of essays included in the book

First

The new reality

Takedowns

Ignore the real world
Learning from mistakes is overrated
Planning is guessing
Why grow?
Workaholism
Enough with “entrepreneurs”

Go

Make a dent in the universe
Scratch your own itch
Start making something
No time is no excuse
Draw a line in the sand
Mission statement impossible
Outside money is Plan Z
You need less than you think
Start a business, not a start-up
Building to flip is building to flop
Less mass

Progress

Embrace constraints
Build half, not half-ass
Start at the epicenter
Ignore the details early on
Making the call is making progress
Be a curator
Throw less at the problem
Focus on what won't change
Tone is in your fingers
Sell your by-products
Launch now

Productivity

Illusions of agreement
Reasons to quit
Interruption is the enemy of productivity
Meetings are toxic
Good enough is fine
Quick wins
Don't be a hero
Go to sleep
Your estimates suck
Long lists don't get done
Make tiny decisions

Competitors

Don't copy
Decommoditize your product
Pick a fight
Underdo your competition
Who cares what they’re doing?

Evolution

Say no by default
Let your customers outgrow you
Don’t confuse enthusiasm with priority
Be at-home good
Don’t write it down

Promotion

Welcome obscurity
Build an audience
Out-teach your competition
Emulate chefs
Go behind the scenes
Nobody likes plastic flowers
Press releases are spam
Forget about the Wall Street Journal
Drug dealers get it right
Marketing is not a department
The myth of the overnight sensation

Hiring

Do it yourself first
Hire when it hurts
Pass on great people
Strangers at a cocktail party
Resumes are ridiculous
Years of irrelevance
Forget about formal education
Everybody works
Hire managers of one
Hire great writers
The best are everywhere
Test-drive employees

Damage control

Own your bad news
Speed changes everything
How to say you’re sorry
Put everyone on the front lines
Take a deep breath

Culture

You don’t create a culture
Decisions are temporary
Skip the rock stars
They’re not thirteen
Send people home at 5:00
Don’t scar on the first cut
Sound like you
Four-letter words
ASAP is poison

Conclusion

Inspiration is perishable

Resources

About 37signals
37signals products

Reviews from CEO's, leaders, and authors

“If given a choice between investing in someone who has read REWORK or has an MBA, I’m investing in REWORK every time. A must read for every entrepreneur.”
-Mark Cuban, co-founder HDNet, owner of the Dallas Mavericks

“The wisdom in these pages is edgy yet simple, straightforward, and proven. Read this book multiple times to help give you the courage you need to get out there and make something great.”
-Tony Hsieh, CEO, of Zappos.com

“The clarity, even genius, of REWORK actually brought me to near-tears on several occasions.”
-Tom Peters, New York Times bestselling author of IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE

“There’s no jargon or filler here — just hundreds of brilliantly simple rules for success. REWORK is required reading for anyone tired of business platitudes.”
-Chris Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of THE LONG TAIL

“The authors live by the credo ‘keep it simple, stupid’ and REWORK possesses the same intelligence — and irreverence — of that simple adage.”
-John Maeda, President RISD, author of THE LAWS OF SIMPLICITY

“The brilliance of REWORK is that it inspires you to rethink everything you thought you knew about strategy, customers, and getting things done.”
-William C. Taylor, founder FAST COMPANY magazine

“Amazing, powerful, inspirational — those adjectives might make me sound like a fawning fan, but REWORK is that useful. Be prepared for a new feeling of clarity and motivation.”
-Kathy Sierra, co-creator of the bestselling Head First series

“Appealingly intimate, as if you’re having coffee with the authors. REWORK is not just smart and succinct but grounded in the concreteness of doing rather than hard-to-apply philosophizing.
This book inspired me to trust myself in defying the status quo.”
-Penelope Trunk, Author of BRAZEN CAREERIST

“Inspirational. REWORK is a minimalist manifesto that's profoundly practical. In a world where we all keep getting asked to do more with less, the authors show us how to do less and create more.”
-Scott Rosenberg, co-Founder of Salon.com and author of DREAMING IN CODE

“Unperturbed by conventional wisdom, Jason and David start fresh and rewrite the rules of business. Their approach turns out to be as successful as it is counter-intuitive.”
-Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com (and investor in 37signals)