It’s not worth trading sleep for a few extra hours at the office. Not only will it make you exhausted, it’ll literally make you stupid.

Balance is give and take. The typical corporate give-and-take is that life gives and work takes. If it’s easier for work to claim a Sunday than for life to borrow a Thursday, there ain’t no balance.

Rather than demand whatever it takes, we ask, What will it take? That’s an invitation to a conversation.

There’s a fountain of happiness and productivity in working with a stable crew. It’s absolutely key to how we’re able to do so much with so few at Basecamp. We’re baffled that such a competitive advantage isn’t more diligently sought.

When you optimize people’s calendars for effortless carving, you shouldn’t be surprised when people’s time is sliced up.

If the boss really wants to know what’s going on, the answer is embarrassingly obvious: They have to ask! Not vague, self-congratulatory bullshit questions like “What can we do even better?” but the hard ones like “What’s something nobody dares to talk about?” or “Are you afraid of anything at work?” or “Is there anything you worked on recently

If it’s constantly crazy at work, we have two words for you: Fuck that. And two more: Enough already.

If total profits grow year over year, we’ll distribute 25 percent of that growth to employees in that year. This isn’t tied to role, it’s not about individual performance, and since we don’t have salespeople, it’s not commission. Everyone shares or no one gets it.

So the next time you ask an employee to go pick some low-hanging fruit —stop yourself. Respect the work that you’ve never done before. Remind yourself that other people’s jobs aren’t so simple.