Welcome to Verstreuen, meaning “to scatter.” Each week I share highlights from my Workframe system, the process I use to turn books and notes into structured insights. Here, scattered ideas find connection and become something worth sharing.

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🗃️ This Week’s Highlights

This week's notes come from 21 new additions to the Zettelkasten - here’s the three that stood out most to share with you:

🟨 Snowballs Beat Masterplans

🟦 The Trap of Shallow Exploration

🟥 Why Slow Mistakes Kill

The highest performers share a skill: they quickly turn abstract ideas into tangible artifacts - mockups, prototypes, even sketches. These “snowballs” have weight. They can be rolled, shaped, and tested.

I’ve been experimenting with this myself - sharing ideas as small snowballs, not polished masterplans. A Figma mockup here. A one-pager there. Even a napkin sketch.

Last week, instead of perfecting a networking app, I spun up a simple landing page for TryMulch.com and sent it to a few colleagues. Within hours, I had real feedback and even a collaborator interested in beta testing. That rough snowball taught me more than months of planning would have.

The goal isn’t polish - it’s momentum. Snowballs gather size as they roll. Link a handful together, and you’ve got a snowman - a coherent product or strategy.

 📎 Takeaway: Don’t wait to present the snowman. Start with snowballs.

—🗃️—

Most people fail not because they go too shallow or too deep - but because they pick the wrong exploration strategy at the wrong time.

Breadth sketches the map. Depth finds the gold. Both matter - but used at the wrong time, they kill momentum.

Breadth looks like this ⬇️ Short probes in many directions, testing what’s out there.

Depth looks like this ⬇️ One line pushed far enough to break ground.

The trap: confusing one for the other. Too much breadth feels productive - but you never make it very far from where you started. Too much depth feels focused - but it’s blind to other possible solutions.

I learned this the hard way, juggling three product ideas at once. I told myself I was “exploring,” but really I was spreading myself too thin. What I needed was to stop scattering and drill.

📎 Takeaway: Scatter to search. Drill to win. Mistake either, and you stall.

—🗃️—

Speed compounds. Faster cycles mean more feedback, more iterations, more shots on goal.

The real risk isn’t mistakes - it’s slow mistakes. Fail quickly and you get another chance. Fail slowly and you may not recover.

I’ve been sitting on Quickread for months, tweaking copy, polishing concepts, and - most of all - hesitating to launch ads. I told myself I was being smart, that waiting meant better targeting and more efficient spend. But the truth is: waiting didn’t save me money - it cost me learning. Even a $50 ad test would have taught me more than months of analysis. While I stayed still, competitors gained ground.

The lesson is simple: momentum breeds momentum. A scrappy draft leads to feedback. Feedback sparks improvements. Improvements attract collaborators. Each step forward makes the next one easier. Something is always better than nothing, because something can be built upon.

Perfection tempts us, but launching early creates motion - and motion creates clarity.

 📎 Takeaway: Perfect is punishment. Ship ugly. Learn fast.

—🗃️—

Closing Thoughts

Momentum is built, not planned.

A single snowball shows us the smallest step has weight. Depth and breadth show us momentum needs direction. And speed reminds us that once in motion, progress accelerates - momentum compounds into breakthroughs.

The pattern is almost physical: ideas obey the laws of motion.

• An idea at rest stays at rest. Push once, and momentum takes over.

This week’s notes point to a law: momentum compounds. Not through polish, but through motion. The only thing that matters is the first push.

So what’s your snowball this week?

Reply to this email, I read every one!

Thanks for reading Verstreuen! 👋 

Until next week
-GH

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