Terms Governing Year End Project Guilt
Any year end project guilt surviving one weekend must be reclassified as a business in progress.
Preliminary Findings: Year End Project Guilt
Submitted for Initial Review
December 2022
Scope
Someone reviews a year's side projects and realizes several are still represented mainly by folders. This review documents those findings at a preliminary level and makes no final determinations. Final determinations will be deferred pending availability of additional time, which has been the standard operating position since approximately February.
Finding 1: The Folder Problem
Three projects under active development are represented by the following artifacts: a folder named after the project, a README file that was last edited in March, and a note in a task management application containing the word "next." No additional deliverables were located. The folders are well-named.
Finding 2: The Revenue Adjacent Classification
Visible preparation counts as revenue adjacent activity until the first customer forces a different standard. Under this classification, the following items qualify as progress: one Notion page, a purchased domain name, two saved Twitter threads about positioning, and a completed course on the relevant skills. These items are progress. The classification is preliminary.
First consequence. The first case of year end project guilt changes one small decision without being discussed. A new project is not started in December, because starting a new project in December while the existing projects remain folder-level would be administratively inconsistent.
Second consequence. After repetition, other people begin adjusting their behavior around year end project guilt. The concept of January as a reset point gains popularity. January arrives. The folders are still there. They have been renamed.
Third consequence. Eventually year end project guilt acquires an unwritten enforcement system that everyone denies creating. The phrase "I'm working on something" covers a range of project states, from active daily work to a folder containing a README last edited in March. The phrase is accurate in both cases.
The relevant absurd rule: visible preparation counts as revenue adjacent activity until the first customer forces a different standard. No first customer has arrived. The classification holds.
Conclusion Status
Conclusions are pending. This finding is preliminary.