A shelf with a clock on it
A thing I cannot finish stops costing me once whatever can happen next on it, down to nothing happening at all, has an answer written down outside my head. Then a project can sit on a shelf, frozen and still
The freeze that buys time
Years of asking for terms got me motion and no paper. One held line, nothing earns until the paper is signed, put the waiting on the counterparty's clock, and what could still drag it back onto mine was my own
Priced before it can be lost
A plan and a wish get grieved in the same voice, and only the plan had edges. A future that was not once priced, scoped or sold to somebody free to refuse it has no entry anywhere, so nothing marks
What representation is worth
An even split can be an introduction fee wearing a partnership's name. Introductions have a market price, and it is not half. What keeps the difference out of sight for a long time is that one side's contribution is priced
The governor
Two different things get called control, and only one of them falls apart the moment somebody says no. The other one is a limit set on my own output, metered by what actually comes back, and the week it went
Nobody catches a structural mistake alone
A mistake in the structure can be caught in three places: in the sketch, by someone who could have built it; in the build, by me; or in a client's hands after it ships. For years only the last two