253 - David Heinemeier Hansson

David Heinemeier Hansson, or DHH, doesn't need a formal introduction. But we're going to do one anyway.

He is the creator of Ruby on Rails, the open-source framework that has been used by hundreds of thousands of developers.

He is the cofounder of both Basecamp and HEY.

He is a best-selling author and has written four books with cofounder Jason Fried (REWORK, It Doesn't Have To Be Crazy At Work, REMOTE: Office Not Required, and Getting Real.

And if that wasn't enough, he's also a race car driver in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Twitter → twitter.com/dhh

What does your typical day look like?

Early mornings are spent getting kids to school. I usually sit down to work around 8:30. Then it's typically an hour or so catching up on emails, reports, whatever. Then the very best days are entirely free from there to dive into interesting, challenging projects, preferably programming or writing.

What do you think are the main benefits of remote work in 2023?

I've been working remotely for twenty years, and the benefits remain the same for me. The freedom to live wherever, to work from a home office that provides complete calm for focus, and to enjoy the flexibility of being literally next door to the family during the day. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

How do you personally balance work between multiple ongoing projects?

I try to work in seasons. Some seasons are dedicated to programming others to writing and others still to working on the business itself. Multitasking is a mirage. All humans can do is thrash. So keeping just one main project on the plate at the time is the key to going quickly.