Focus is about saying no

Steve Jobs was asked (WWDC’97) about some of Apple’s choice at the time in cutting off features, and had this to say:

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

Steve is talking here about “feature creep”, adding features just to please everyone or follow the current trend. But this is also applied on a personal level.


Also published on Medium.

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