The heartbeat of Hampton, the company where I work, is our Core Groups: small, curated circles of founders who meet monthly to share their toughest challenges, exchange unfiltered feedback and hold each other accountable. These groups are designed to give founders something they can’t find anywhere else, a space of radical candor, deep trust and true peer support. For many, it’s the first room they’ve been in where everyone “gets it.”
As the VP of Core, I spend my days1 studying group methodology, accountability practices, ritual, habit….basically anything that might empower our founders not just to run their companies better, but to be better humans.
Most days I’m talking about how to implement and operationalize new tools across all of our groups. Most nights I’m lying awake wondering: will this work?2 It’s a fun loop, let me tell you.
This week I’ve been navigating a particularly tricky situation: We’re piloting some exciting new things, and we need to make decisions without complete data.
For a former big tech product person, this feels deeply uncomfortable. A true nightmare situation.
For a startup product leader3, it’s just your average Monday.
I imagine my conundrum is familiar, regardless of who you are or where you work…
The more I thought about the problem, the worse it got. Every angle I examined seemed to spawn three new complications. Instead of clarity, my brain served up heavy convolution. The problem actually felt like it was growing, snowballing into something unmanageable. Worst of all, it made me feel awful.
And then, in the middle of that thinking frenzy, I remembered one of the very principles we’re experimenting with at Hampton: Kidlin’s Law.
What’s Kidlin’s Law?
Kidlin’s Law states: “If you can write the problem down clearly, then the matter is half solved.”
To be completely honest, I’ve had trouble tracking down the true origin of this principle. It was something one of our founders Sam shared with me. I couldn’t pin down a consistent answer to who Kidlin was or where it came from, and it felt irresponsible to cite a principle without a clear source. Another, louder part of me wondered if it even mattered.
Because wherever it came from, I’ve personally found it works.
And so I thought, if I’m out here promoting this principle, asking founders to use it, why wasn’t I using it myself? Classic case of not practicing what I preach.
So I blocked off my morning, put on noise-canceling headphones, and gave myself one assignment: write the problem down. Not solve it. Just write it.
If I couldn’t even explain the problem to myself, how could I ever explain it to my team, let alone lead us to a solution?
So how did it go?
The great news is that writing it down didn’t just clarify the problem. It immediately turned the volume down on my anxiety. By about 100 degrees. Suddenly, I could see truly see the tangle of what was happening instead of drowning in my own ruminations.
Putting the problem into words helped me:
Articulate what was really going on.
Find a clear way to explain it to myself and eventually to others.
Shift into a headspace where solutions were possible.
When the emotional temperature is high and confusion is at its peak, there is no healthy problem-solving. Hell, there’s no problem solving at all.
So yeah, I loved this approach. And since starting the draft for this post, I’ve done it twice.
Writing the problem down works.
And I’ll be using it, preaching it, and coaching it. Especially on the days when my anxious brain snowballs a simple knot into one giant, tangled mess.
Hi - I’m Jori and I’m a Product Coach. If you’re Product Leader or on a Product team looking for support - drop me a note.
And nights because its hard turning off your brain when you’re excited about something.
Imposter thoughts spare no one.
New identity I’m trying on for size.