Former Facebook employees, Rosenstein and Moskowitz, developed an internal tool that allowed teams to work together more effectively. They left Facebook to start Asana, a platform for productivity software. Despite their initial estimate of launching the product within a year, it took three years, but Asana now has a large and prestigious customer list. Rosenstein emphasizes mastering impulse control and fighting distraction as keys to success in the productivity software market.
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from “the planning fallacy.” (You also have an “optimism bias” and a bad case of overconfidence.) But don’t worry: we’ve got the solution.