# Once again, we failed to focus

> Why do we keep doing things that aren't our core mission? Because we'd never thought about what that was.

> **Editorial note:** This one was drafted a while back, and things have changed. I'll publish it mostly as originally written; see the adjacent posts for more context.

We've done it again. And we're sorry – Lucy in particular _hates_ unfinished business – but we started a thing that we shouldn't have, so we're going to cancel it. ~~Two things! Those~~ That thing being our 'Everyday Obsidian' ~~and 'Online security essentials'~~ mini-courses.

> **Update:** We're keeping the security thing for now. I have ideas how it can be an important part of how we help small business. I leave it here to show how these decisions aren't easy.

Once again this is a textbook case of not focusing on what's important. As a _very_ small business, we need to guard our time. We started these things without really thinking them through. At the time they were a welcome distraction: we'd just come out of a months-long zone of focus, [merging the two websites](/blog/0208-this-week-2026-05-25#what-we-did-last-week). ~~And I really would love to do that online security thing one day. But in hindsight, they were wrong for now.~~

## What's our purpose?

We mock 'mission statements', but their value just became apparent to me. We've never written down exactly what it is we're here for: **why do we exist?**

We still haven't written that down, but if I think out loud it's something like: _people need help organising stuff, and we have an interesting method of doing that, so we should try to help them_.

> **Update:** I drafted this post weeks ago. Since then we've written down our [purpose, mission, and values](/blog/0229/).

Do _explaining Obsidian's features_ or _helping you not get hacked online_ fit into that? The former, kinda, maybe. But I'm not even that good at Obsidian! You want Obsidian advice there are tens of thousands of hours of that already on YouTube. The latter – having thought on it, I see a place where that fits into what we do.

When we're back at work later this week this is one of the first things we'll be doing: writing down short, practical, human answers to the following questions.

1. Why do we exist? (Purpose)
2. What are we going to do about it? (Mission)
3. How do we behave while we do it? (Values)

## Use this as a filter

I think the reason we mock large corporations' mission statements is that they feel like platitudes that someone's had engraved on a plate and then never read again. Certainly that's how I felt at basically every job I had.[^think-different]

[^think-different]: Most such 'mission statements' can be summed up as: _think different and act bravely_. Well I tried that and let me tell you, that is _not_ what your corporate middle-manager wants.

So how do we make sure that these statements, once codified, serve their purpose? I haven't implemented this yet, but it feels simple enough.

1. Create a 'new [project](/blog/0225/)' template in our JDex.
2. This template has a checkbox that asks you to consider the project in the context of this just-documented purpose, mission, and values. Does it align with them?

Of course you need to actually give some thought to this whenever you create a new project. Boxes like this can be something you check without thought once it becomes routine. This is something that the two of us should actively discuss together.

This is a work-in-progress. I'll report back.