You know, sometimes life just throws you a curveball, a situation where all your usual careful planning and strategizing just go right out the window. That’s when you gotta tap into that raw, unbridled energy. For me, that’s what the “Knight of Swords” truly means as advice: Rush. Just go for it. Don’t overthink.
I remember this one time, it was a few years back, we had this massive new client come in. A huge opportunity, but with it came an insane demand: a proof-of-concept for a completely new system, something we’d never really touched before, and they wanted it in less than two weeks. My usual self would spend days, maybe a whole week, just drawing diagrams, writing specs, debating tech stacks with the team. But this time? There was just no time for that luxury. The clock was ticking loud and clear the moment they signed.
My first instinct was panic, pure and simple. Then, a weird calm settled in. It was like a little voice in my head, or maybe just that gut feeling, telling me, “Dude, you just gotta run.” So, I made the call right there. No big team meeting to hash out every single detail for hours. I just grabbed the two most capable folks on my team, pulled them into a huddle, and laid it out: “Look, we’re not planning. We’re building. We’re going agile-extreme. We’re going Knight of Swords on this thing.”
We started with the absolute bare minimum. What’s the core feature they must see? What’s the one thing that sells this idea? We identified that one critical piece and just dove headfirst into coding it. I didn’t even bother with a proper database setup at first. Just mocked some data in memory, hardcoded stuff, whatever it took to get a visual representation on screen. It was ugly, it was rough around the edges, but it was there.
The process itself was a whirlwind. Every morning, we’d have a stand-up that lasted maybe five minutes. “What did you do? What are you doing? Anything blocking you?” That was it. No long discussions. If there was a block, we’d solve it right then and there, together, or find a quick workaround. I remember one afternoon, we hit a wall with a tricky integration. My usual approach would be to research, read docs, maybe try five different libraries. This time? I literally just picked the first library that seemed half-decent, spent an hour wrestling with it, and when it didn’t quite work, I didn’t dwell. I grabbed another one, tossed the first, and just kept pushing. It felt like tearing pages out of a book you’re writing and rewriting on the fly.
- Skipped the excessive planning: Just identified the absolute core.
- Embraced rough edges: Functionality over perfection, always.
- Made snap decisions: No time for paralysis by analysis.
- Constantly course-corrected: If something broke, fix it or find a path around it, immediately.
- Kept communication lean: Quick huddles, direct questions, instant answers.
There were moments, for sure, when I questioned my sanity. “Am I ruining this? Am I making huge technical debt?” But that thought itself was a luxury I couldn’t afford. The deadline was a fixed star, unmoving. So, I just kept pushing, kept encouraging the team to push. If someone got stuck, I’d jump in, pair-program a solution, or just tell them, “Forget it, move to the next thing, I’ll deal with this later.” It was about maintaining that forward momentum, that relentless charge.
By the end of the first week, we had something tangible. It wasn’t pretty, but it showcased the core functionality. We showed it internally, got some quick feedback, and then spent the next few days polishing just those parts. We cut corners everywhere else, ignored features that weren’t essential for the demo, and just focused on making that core shine.
When the demo day came, we were all running on fumes. But we delivered. The client saw a working system, something that demonstrated the vision they had. Was it the most robust piece of engineering? Absolutely not. Was it perfect? Nope. But it worked, and it impressed them enough to greenlight the full project. That “rush” decision, that Knight of Swords energy, paid off big time.
Looking back, it taught me a valuable lesson. Sometimes, that intense, focused charge, without the drag of overthinking, is exactly what you need. It forces you to be resourceful, to make decisions quickly, and to trust your instincts. It’s not about being reckless, but about knowing when to trade deep deliberation for sheer, unadulterated speed. You learn so much by just getting your hands dirty and figuring stuff out as you go, especially when the clock is breathing down your neck.
