Alright, so this Andrew Gregor thing popped up on my feed last month. Honestly, the title screamed “another fancy management guru,” made me wanna scroll right past. But hey, the subheading mentioned “no fluff, just getting stuff done,” which kinda hooked me. My own team felt like herding cats most days, constant meetings, endless emails about nothing, projects drifting. Figured, what the hell, can’t be worse than this mess.
Started Simple, Just Looking
Dug into his main talk online. First reaction? Okay, this guy actually talks like a real person doing real work, not just spouting theory. No big words, no fancy frameworks. His big deal was cutting out all the noise that bogs you down. More work, less yakking. Said you gotta figure out the one or two things that actually move the needle for your business, like right now, and throw everything else overboard. Sounded brutal. Sounded like what I needed.
Next day, I grabbed my notepad – the old-school paper kind – and scribbled down his core points:
- Stop the meeting madness: Seriously, question if you even need most of them.
- What’s REALLY critical?: Not just busywork, but the stuff that makes money or keeps customers happy today.
- Tell people exactly what to do: No vague goals. Crystal clear, short, do-this-now instructions.
- Focus like a laser: One big thing at a time. Don’t spread everyone thin.
Stared at it. Felt kinda… obvious? But also, we weren’t doing any of it.
Threw Myself into the Deep End
No point just nodding along, right? I picked the next Monday to go full Gregor. Grabbed my small product team first – they were knee-deep in new features but going nowhere fast.
First, the meetings. I looked at our calendar. So many standing meetings. My gut said “Gregor wouldn’t like this.” Went straight to the team: “Okay, hit me. Which weekly meetings suck the life outta you and don’t actually help us ship stuff?” Silence. Then, slowly, hands went up. Killed three recurring meetings on the spot. Felt scary, honestly. Like I was breaking some unwritten rule.
Then came the hard part: Figuring out the CRITICAL thing. We sat down – the meeting I kept! – and argued for an hour. Everyone had their pet project. But Gregor’s point hammered me: What’s blocking us right now? It wasn’t cool new features. It was bug fixes piling up, making customers yell at support. That was it. Not exciting. But critical. We scrapped the new feature plan for the next sprint. All hands on bugs. Felt risky as hell.
Next up, focus. Instead of scattering tasks across 5 projects, I wrote down three single-sentence tasks for the week on the whiteboard:
- Fix the checkout crash bug (Priority #1).
- Speed up slow dashboard load times.
- Call back 10 unhappy customers identified by support.
That’s it. No big fancy goals. Just stuff you could understand and do. Told the team: “Ignore everything else. If it’s not on the board, don’t do it unless the building is on fire.” Got some weird looks.
When Things Got Messy (Because They Did)
Oh, it wasn’t smooth sailing. Day two, the boss wanted a detailed report due Friday – classic non-critical task. Gregor’s voice in my head: “Does that help us ship bugs or keep customers today?” Hell no. Took a deep breath. Emailed back: “Can’t do this report well this week. We’re heads down fixing critical issues impacting sales. Can I give you a quick update call instead on the progress?” Felt like I might get fired. Boss just said “Okay.” Shocked me.
Another time, a team member got sucked into fixing a cool but irrelevant visual glitch. Pulled them aside: “Hey, remember Gregor? Remember the board? Is that bug on fire right now?” They got sheepish, dropped it. Focus isn’t easy.
So, Where Are We Now?
It’s been three weeks. Not perfect. Still feels weird sometimes. Less structure, more… raw? But here’s the kicker:
- We shipped more bug fixes in two weeks than the whole damn month before.
- The support team emailed me saying customers are noticeably happier. One actually said “thank you.” Crazy.
- Less meetings, yeah. More time actually coding and fixing stuff. Team seems less stressed, honestly. More “done” at the end of the day.
- That non-critical report? Boss forgot he even asked.
Andrew Gregor’s approach isn’t magic beans. It’s blunt force trauma on the dumb stuff holding you back. It’s uncomfortable. It forces you to make hard choices about what really matters now and cut out the noise. No fancy software required, just guts. And so far? For my messy little corner of the world? It’s actually working. Gonna keep sticking my neck out and doing it. Weirdly empowering.
