---
author: Seth Godin
year: 2010
tags:
  - book
  - productivity
---

# Ship It

*ShipIt* (2010) is Seth Godin's short workbook companion to *Linchpin*. Its premise is that the work only counts once it leaves your hands, and that most projects fail from fear rather than lack of skill or ideas.

## Core concepts

- **Shipping is the point.** Starting is only worth something if you finish. An unshipped project, however brilliant, has changed nothing.
- **The resistance (the "lizard brain").** Borrowing from Steven Pressfield, Godin argues that the fearful part of the brain sabotages you hardest as you near the finish, because shipping exposes you to criticism. Procrastination, endless polishing and "one more feature" are its disguises.
- **Set a ship date and honour it.** Commit to a date and budget up front, then ship when the date arrives. The deadline is a tool for beating the resistance, not an estimate.
- **Thrash early.** Debate, brainstorming and changes of direction are cheap at the start and ruinous at the end. Get everyone's input up front, then lock it down; late thrashing is what kills projects or ships them late.
- **Name the fears.** Write down what you are afraid of and what could go wrong. Fear named on paper loses much of its power.
- **Know who can say no.** Identify early everyone who must approve the project or could stop it, and involve them during the early thrashing, not at the end.
- **Define "good enough".** Perfect is a hiding place. Decide in advance what done looks like so you can't keep moving the bar.
- **Plan for both outcomes.** Decide what you will do if it fails and what you will do if it succeeds, so neither one paralyses you.
- **Shipping is a habit.** People who ship reliably become indispensable (the *Linchpin* argument); it is a practised skill, not a talent.

## How the workbook works

It is a fill-in-the-blanks journal for one project. You write down the project, the ship date, your fears, the stakeholders, the people who can stop it, the essential and non-essential pieces, and your plan for the final push. Committing in writing is the mechanism: it makes the project real and makes it harder to quietly back out.