I Declared Bankruptcy...

Project Bankruptcy.

Allow me, dear reader to explain.

Your company isn't technically bankrupt, but your team's attention might be.

Every so often, I see it happen: smart people juggling eight different "priorities," each one supposedly critical to the business.

Death by a thousand pet projects - ESPECIALLY in a growing company.

Here's what usually happens:

A good idea comes up in a meeting.

Someone says they'll "look into it."

Another good idea emerges over lunch.

Someone else volunteers to "take point."

Three months later, you've got a dozen half-baked initiatives consuming precious company oxygen, while “the constraint” barely gets the attention it deserves.

So I stole an idea from bankruptcy management, of all places.

When companies go bankrupt, the first thing a turnaround CEO does is cancel every single financial commitment.

All credit cards get cut up.

All recurring payments stop.

Every dollar going out needs fresh justification.

It's called zero based budgeting, and it works because it forces you to rebuild from scratch, questioning everything.

I call my version Zero Based Project Reset (I just did this at Sagan).

Here's how it works:

First, declare project bankruptcy.

This isn't a cute metaphor – actually do it.

Send the email. Call the meeting.

Make it clear that as of right now, every single project that isn't “inbound” day-to-day work is officially paused.

Watch what happens next.

Some people will panic.

"But what about the XYZ initiative?"

Others will feel immediate relief.

That's telling.

Next, give everyone a hard limit.

In our case, it's three (but it’s REALLY supposed to be ONE).

That's it.

No more than three discretionary projects beyond your day job.

Want to add a fourth?

Something else has to go.

Like dudes at a nightclub - one in, one out.

This isn't arbitrary cruelty – it's recognition that human attention is finite.

When someone says they can effectively drive eight important projects forward, they're either lying to you or to themselves.

THIS ALSO DISCIPLINES MANAGEMENT.

Every leader has a new freaking good idea every week, and its driving your team up the wall.

Next, create one (yes, one) central place where approved projects live.

Not spread across seventeen Notion docs or buried in Slack threads.

One source of truth.

In our company, we are tracking only two things for each project: who owns it, what the end state looks like.

Sure we could be fancier - but for now this is fine.

Here's the beautiful part: This isn't about doing less.

It's about doing the right things with full attention.

Your best people are probably already at capacity just doing their day jobs well.

That "extra" good idea the boss had project?

It's STEALING focus from the core work that actually works at the constraint.

The hardest part? This isn't a one-time fix.

Project creep is like organizational vines – it'll grow back if you don't stay vigilant.

Remember: Your team's attention is your scarcest resource.

Treat it that way.

Use it against the constraint!

Here is a section of ours - and they are available to everyone in the company.

Hugo is our Head of Operations and has ONE.

Yallah Habibi,

Jon

Annex:

Need a refresher on what “Solving at the Constraint” Is?

I wrote this to the team a ways back - good overview!

Solving at the Constraint 101

We can't do everything.

Time, energy, and resources are limited.

 If we try to fix everything at once, we'll end up spreading ourselves too thin—and nothing will move the needle.

That's why we focus on one thing above all else: solving at the constraint.

What does that mean?

It means finding the single biggest bottleneck holding us back and pouring all our effort into fixing it.

When we solve the constraint, everything else gets easier.

It's like strengthening the weakest link in a chain—once it's strong, the whole chain can handle more weight.

For us, the constraint is whatever is slowing us down from achieving our goals: hire more/faster/affordably, use talent better, and help our members build leverage in their businesses with digital power tools.

It could be a process, a tool, or even a skill gap.

Whatever it is, we don't ignore it—we attack it.

Why This Matters

Imagine you're driving a car with a flat tire.

You could clean the windshield, upgrade the stereo, or even add a fancy GPS—but none of that will help you move faster.

The flat tire is the constraint. 

Until you fix it, you're stuck.

The same is true for our work.

If we don't solve the constraint, we'll waste time, energy, and opportunity.

But when we do, we unlock growth, efficiency, and results.

Let's break it down with an example.

Example: Not Solving at the Constraint

Imagine our recruiters are struggling to fill a certain role quickly.

They're spending hours every day manually sourcing candidates—scrolling through LinkedIn, sending individual messages, and tracking responses in spreadsheets.
To help, we decide to improve their calendar scheduling tool so they can set up interviews faster.

While the new tool might save them a little time, it doesn't address the real bottleneck: the hours spent manually sourcing candidates.

Recruiters are still stuck in a time-consuming process, and our time-to-fill metrics don't improve much.

In this case, we didn't solve at the constraint.

We focused on a small improvement instead of tackling the biggest problem holding us back.

Example: Solving at the Constraint

Now, let's tackle the same problem differently

. We start by identifying the constraint: manual candidate sourcing is the biggest bottleneck slowing down our recruiters.

Instead of suggesting a small fix, we focus all our energy on solving this constraint.

We implement a candidate sourcing team that spends all day doing outreach to find and rank potential candidates in our proprietary software.

They send personalized outreach messages on behalf of recruiters.

This cuts their sourcing time from hours to minutes.

With the constraint solved, recruiters can now focus on engaging with top candidates, moving them through the hiring process faster, and filling more roles for our members.

The impact is huge because we solved the right problem—the one that was holding us back the most.

The Difference

In the first example, we made a small improvement but didn't move the needle. In the second, we solved the constraint and created a breakthrough. That's the power of solving at the constraint.

Here's how you can think about it:

1. Identify the constraint. What's the one thing that, if fixed, would have the biggest impact on helping our members hire faster, hire more, use talent better, or build leverage with digital tools?

2. Focus on it. Put your time, energy, and creativity into solving that one thing.

3. Solve it. Once the constraint is fixed, move on to the next one.

This isn't about doing more things—it's about doing the right things.

It's about working smarter, not harder.

And it's about making sure every effort we make moves the needle for our members and our mission.

What's Next?

So, ask yourself: What's the constraint in your work? 

What's holding you back from helping our members hire faster, hire more, use talent better, or build leverage with digital tools?

Let's find it, fix it, and finish it—one constraint at a time.