The Four Laws of Volunteerism

When helping out with an unfunded community project — which we do simply because we love it and we want it to exist in the world — everything we do is subject to the Laws of Volunteerism.

These laws, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

Law #1: Our predicted involvement will be bigger than our actual involvement. The energy and excitement that we have at the beginning of a project is rarely sustainable at its peak levels, and the actual time we can invest in a project over the long-term needs to have a realistic bare minimum.

Law #2: We will mostly do things that are either urgent or methodical. Give us a fire to put out, and we’ll jump on it. Give us task to repeat every week, and we’ll turn it into a habit. But ask us to think about something new every day without attaching a major deadline to it?  Yeah, sorry, we’d love to, but maybe you can find someone else to jump in…

Law #3: We need to see that our work is helping others in order to keep doing it. As volunteers, we are fueled by the positive impact we have on others, and we lose momentum when that’s harder to see. If we don’t release early and often, if no one else on the team is helped by what we do, or if we simply just feel like we’re working in a vacuum, we’ll run out of steam.

Law #4: Real life will get in the way. Job stress, moving, breakups, illness, overwhelm, family issues, school, travel, projects, personal transitions, and other forms of Real Life don’t stop knocking. Ever. Volunteering is a commitment, but it’s a rather secondary commitment to, say, staying alive and healthy, and we have to remain flexible as our own availabilities change.

These laws aren’t so bad. As long as we remember them and respect them, we can find our way.

(based on The Process, the Laws, and Dreaming vs. Doing from my personal blog.)

The Four Laws of Volunteerism

When helping out with an unfunded community project — which we do simply because we love it and we want it to exist in the world — everything we do is subject to the Laws of Volunteerism.

These laws, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

Law #1: Our predicted involvement will be bigger than our actual involvement. The energy and excitement that we have at the beginning of a project is rarely sustainable at its peak levels, and the actual time we can invest in a project over the long-term needs to have a realistic bare minimum.

Law #2: We will mostly do things that are either urgent or methodical. Give us a fire to put out, and we’ll jump on it. Give us task to repeat every week, and we’ll turn it into a habit. But ask us to think about something new every day without attaching a major deadline to it?  Yeah, sorry, we’d love to, but maybe you can find someone else to jump in…

Law #3: We need to see that our work is helping others in order to keep doing it. As volunteers, we are fueled by the positive impact we have on others, and we lose momentum when that’s harder to see. If we don’t release early and often, if no one else on the team is helped by what we do, or if we simply just feel like we’re working in a vacuum, we’ll run out of steam.

Law #4: Real life will get in the way. Job stress, moving, breakups, illness, overwhelm, family issues, school, travel, projects, personal transitions, and other forms of Real Life don’t stop knocking. Ever. Volunteering is a commitment, but it’s a rather secondary commitment to, say, staying alive and healthy, and we have to remain flexible as our own availabilities change.

These laws aren’t so bad. As long as we remember them and respect them, we can find our way.

(based on The Process, the Laws, and Dreaming vs. Doing from my personal blog.)

The Four Laws of Volunteerism

When helping out with an unfunded community project — which we do simply because we love it and we want it to exist in the world — everything we do is subject to the Laws of Volunteerism.

These laws, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

Law #1:

Law #1: Our predicted involvement will be bigger than our actual involvement. The energy and excitement that we have at the beginning of a project is rarely sustainable at its peak levels, and the actual time we can invest in a project over the long-term needs to have a realistic bare minimum.

Law #2: We will mostly do things that are either urgent or methodical. Give us a fire to put out, and we’ll jump on it. Give us task to repeat every week, and we’ll turn it into a habit. But ask us to think about something new every day without attaching a major deadline to it?  Yeah, sorry, we’d love to, but maybe you can find someone else to jump in…

Law #3: We need to see that our work is helping others in order to keep doing it. As volunteers, we are fueled by the positive impact we have on others, and we lose momentum when that’s harder to see. If we don’t release early and often, if no one else on the team is helped by what we do, or if we simply just feel like we’re working in a vacuum, we’ll run out of steam.

Law #4: Real life will get in the way. Job stress, moving, breakups, illness, overwhelm, family issues, school, travel, projects, personal transitions, and other forms of Real Life don’t stop knocking. Ever. Volunteering is a commitment, but it’s a rather secondary commitment to, say, staying alive and healthy, and we have to remain flexible as our own availabilities change.

These laws aren’t so bad. As long as we remember them and respect them, we can find our way.

(based on The Process, the Laws, and Dreaming vs. Doing from my personal blog.)

The Four Laws of Volunteerism

When helping out with an unfunded community project — which we do simply because we love it and we want it to exist in the world — everything we do is subject to the Laws of Volunteerism.

These laws, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

Law #1:

Law #1: Our predicted involvement will be bigger than our actual involvement. The energy and excitement that we have at the beginning of a project is rarely sustainable at its peak levels, and the actual time we can invest in a project over the long-term needs to have a realistic bare minimum.

Law #2: We will mostly do things that are either urgent or methodical. Give us a fire to put out, and we’ll jump on it. Give us task to repeat every week, and we’ll turn it into a habit. But ask us to think about something new every day without attaching a major deadline to it?  Yeah, sorry, we’d love to, but maybe you can find someone else to jump in…

Law #3: We need to see that our work is helping others in order to keep doing it. As volunteers, we are fueled by the positive impact we have on others, and we lose momentum when that’s harder to see. If we don’t release early and often, if no one else on the team is helped by what we do, or if we simply just feel like we’re working in a vacuum, we’ll run out of steam.

Law #4: Real life will get in the way. Job stress, moving, breakups, illness, overwhelm, family issues, school, travel, projects, personal transitions, and other forms of Real Life don’t stop knocking. Ever. Volunteering is a commitment, but it’s a rather secondary commitment to, say, staying alive and healthy, and we have to remain flexible as our own availabilities change.

These laws aren’t so bad. As long as we remember them and respect them, we can find our way.

(based on The Process, the Laws, and Dreaming vs. Doing from my personal blog.)

The Four Laws of Volunteerism

When helping out with an unfunded community project — which we do simply because we love it and we want it to exist in the world — everything we do is subject to the Laws of Volunteerism.

These laws, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

Law #1: Our predicted involvement will be bigger than our actual involvement. The energy and excitement that we have at the beginning of a project is rarely sustainable at its peak levels, and the actual time we can invest in a project over the long-term needs to have a realistic bare minimum.

Law #2: We will mostly do things that are either urgent or methodical. Give us a fire to put out, and we’ll jump on it. Give us task to repeat every week, and we’ll turn it into a habit. But ask us to think about something new every day without attaching a major deadline to it?  Yeah, sorry, we’d love to, but maybe you can find someone else to jump in…

Law #3: We need to see that our work is helping others in order to keep doing it. As volunteers, we are fueled by the positive impact we have on others, and we lose momentum when that’s harder to see. If we don’t release early and often, if no one else on the team is helped by what we do, or if we simply just feel like we’re working in a vacuum, we’ll run out of steam.

Law #4: Real life will get in the way. Job stress, moving, breakups, illness, overwhelm, family issues, school, travel, projects, personal transitions, and other forms of Real Life don’t stop knocking. Ever. Volunteering is a commitment, but it’s a rather secondary commitment to, say, staying alive and healthy, and we have to remain flexible as our own availabilities change.

These laws aren’t so bad. As long as we remember them and respect them, we can find our way.

(based on The Process, the Laws, and Dreaming vs. Doing from my personal blog.)

The Four Laws of Volunteerism

When helping out with an unfunded community project — which we do simply because we love it and we want it to exist in the world — everything we do is subject to the Laws of Volunteerism.

These laws, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

Law #1: Our predicted involvement will be bigger than our actual involvement. The energy and excitement that we have at the beginning of a project is rarely sustainable at its peak levels, and the actual time we can invest in a project over the long-term needs to have a realistic bare minimum.

Law #2: We will mostly do things that are either urgent or methodical. Give us a fire to put out, and we’ll jump on it. Give us task to repeat every week, and we’ll turn it into a habit. But ask us to think about something new every day without attaching a major deadline to it?  Yeah, sorry, we’d love to, but maybe you can find someone else to jump in…

Law #3: We need to see that our work is helping others in order to keep doing it. As volunteers, we are fueled by the positive impact we have on others, and we lose momentum when that’s harder to see. I think the single biggest mistake we made in the first year of one of my current projects was not creating a smaller version of the marketplace that we could release much sooner.

Law #4: Real life will get in the way. Job stress, moving, breakups, illness, overwhelm, family issues, school, travel, projects, personal transitions, and other forms of Real Life don’t stop knocking. Ever. Volunteering is a commitment, but it’s a rather secondary commitment to, say, staying alive and healthy, and we have to remain flexible as our own availabilities change.

These laws aren’t so bad. As long as we remember them and respect them, we can find our way.

(based on The Process, the Laws, and Dreaming vs. Doing from my personal blog.)

The Four Laws of Volunteerism

When helping out with an unfunded community project — which we do simply because we love it and we want it to exist in the world — everything we do is subject to the Laws of Volunteerism.

These laws, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

Law #1: Our predicted involvement will be bigger than our actual involvement. The energy and excitement that we have at the beginning of a project is rarely sustainable at its peak levels, and the actual time we can invest in a project over the long-term needs to have a realistic bare minimum.

Law #2: We will mostly do things that are either urgent or methodical. Give us a fire to put out, and we’ll jump on it. Give us task to repeat every week, and we’ll turn it into a habit. But ask us to think about something new every day without attaching a major deadline to it?  Yeah, sorry, we’d love to, but maybe you can find someone else to jump in…

Law #3: We need to see that our work is helping others in order to keep doing it. As volunteers, we are fueled by the positive impact we have on others, and we lose momentum when that’s harder to see. I think the single biggest mistake we made in the first year of one of my current projects was not creating a smaller version of the marketplace that we could release much sooner.

Law #4: Real life will get in the way. Job stress, moving, breakups, illness, overwhelm, family issues, school, travel, projects, personal transitions, and other forms of Real Life don’t stop knocking. Ever. Volunteering is a commitment, but it’s a rather secondary commitment to, say, staying alive and healthy, and we have to remain flexible as our own availabilities change.

These laws aren’t so bad. As long as we remember them and respect them, we can find our way.

(based on The Process, the Laws, and Dreaming vs. Doing from my personal blog.)

The Four Laws of Volunteerism

When helping out with an unfunded community project — which we do simply because we love it and we want it to exist in the world — everything we do is subject to the Laws of Volunteerism.

These laws, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

Law #1: Our predicted involvement will be bigger than our actual involvement. The energy and excitement that we have at the beginning of a project is rarely sustainable at its peak levels, and the actual time we can invest in a project over the long-term needs to have a realistic bare minimum.

Law #2: We will mostly do things that are either urgent or methodical. Give us a fire to put out, and we’ll jump on it. Give us task to repeat every week, and we’ll turn it into a habit. But ask us to think about something new every day without attaching a major deadline to it?  Yeah, sorry, we’d love to, but maybe you can find someone else to jump in…

Law #3: We need to see that our work is helping others in order to keep doing it. As volunteers, we are fueled by the positive impact we have on others, and we lose momentum when that’s harder to see. I think the single biggest mistake we made in the first year of one of my current projects was not creating a smaller version of the marketplace that we could release much sooner.

Law #4: Real life will get in the way. Job stress, moving, breakups, illness, overwhelm, family issues, school, travel, projects, personal transitions, and other forms of Real Life don’t stop knocking. Ever. Volunteering is a commitment, but it’s a rather secondary commitment to, say, staying alive and healthy, and we have to remain flexible as our own availabilities change.

These laws aren’t so bad. As long as we remember them and respect them, we can find our way.

(based on The Process, the Laws, and Dreaming vs. Doing from my personal blog.)