Judging by the timing of the tweets it seems that TPW got into a manic episode and fixed a problem. While we have all done things like this from time to time I don't see it as an example of "how doers do".
"Doers" should be firing on all cylinders all the time taking on things that can't be fixed in a binge. And if they can be fixed in a hour or two it shouldn't take a manic episode to get the energy to fix them.
For anyone interested:
Not many people can do this that I know. I do know a few.
We need more advice for the average in this world.
The best thing that has worked for us is to communicate goals, so if I'm trying to get "X" done we'll work schedules to get time to work on it, and then if she is trying to get "Y" done we'll do the same for her. When we're doing "Z" which is high priority for both of us we we're just splitting up things to work on and doing them and time issues don't seem to pop up.
The key for us is that we're very supportive of each others goals, and when planned together we are both committed to making things successful. Problems arise when one of us goes heads down in some project and shuts the other out, leaving them to keep things going while the other gets their project done. That doesn't feel good to the person shut out. Things get dicey and we've got to recognize that something that should have been 'short and sweet' is taking way more time.
Decades ago leadership meant using powerful and inspiring words to move people into action. This led us to believe that people who could "communicate" well were natural leaders. Personally, I prefer "doers" to "talkers" as an inspirational model.
Tom Preston-Werner is also incredibly lucky that he can write a spec and overnight a half-dozen implementations crop up. I wish that worked for me!
I think that's an excellent point and more or less goes along with my comment on this. I think what TPW was doing was actually trying to get out of the rut of completing the real work by trying to have some success and pleasure which would spur him on to finishing what he needed to do (as evidenced by the tweets) (reminds me a little of not getting into real work but spending time "organizing" first under you get the energy up to tackle the real task). Sometimes simply writing shell scripts gets me in the mood to do the "real work" that I have to do (programming or non programming).
Once again, nothing wrong with this approach I just don't think it's an example as stated of a "doer" which is not the same as saying that the behavior doesn't have any value.
Reminds me of a Buddhist saying that if you meet the Buddha on the road, you should kill him. Kill being used in the sense of remain detached, not physically kill.
