The Campsite Rule

Work using the campsite rule: “Leave it better than you found it”.

What is the Campsite Rule?

The basic principle is: “Leave it better than you found it”. The idea comes from camping, where you should clean up your campsite after you’re done, so that the place is in better shape than when you arrived.

The Campsite Rule is necessary because otherwise things deteriorate, and nobody can enjoy the camping spot.

Why follow this rule?

Like camping in nature, most things in companies get more complex and worse over time. Unless you follow the Campsite Rule the world gets worse. It will get harder to get things done.

Another reason for the Campsite Rule is that people often go off the rails when they try to fix problems. I often see engineers spend days on relatively unimportant work, because they get frustrated by the space they’re in. The Campsite Rule gives you a standard so you know when to stop.

Balancing your time

The campsite rule means you shouldn’t underinvest in making the space you’re working better.

But it also means don’t overinvest in making it better.

What does this look like in practice?

So for example, if you come across a part of the codebase that doesn’t have tests, what do you do?

You have several options:

• You could rewrite the whole code to be more testable.
• You could write tests for the whole thing.
• You could add a test.
• You could add tests but timebox it to half an hour of testing.

In general, the guiding rule should be: leave it better than you found it. You also shouldn’t leave it worse off. So any of these options could be reasonable, but likely the first one or two would be a stretch. The third option would be totally reasonable. And the last might be best of all.

Beyond code

This principle extends beyond just code. It can apply to anything you are doing:

• Documentation - Is the documentation better than when I started with it? When you’re working in a wiki, is there a small improvement you can make before moving on?
• Process - Is this week’s meeting a little better than last week’s meeting?
• Team dynamics - Are we communicating better this week than last week? Do we understand our customers better?
• Tools and systems - Have we automated things a little more? Are things a little better than they were before? Is it easier to understand than it was when you started?

Improvements compound

When everyone on a team is applying the Campsite Rule, things get better and better over time. The codebase gets easier to work in. The meetings get better and better. You ship faster, and have more fun. It’s exhilirating.

It’s not about making everything perfect. It’s about making everything a little bit better, consistently.

A few tips for the Campsite Rule

1. Red, green, refactor - Do the main work (make it green), then do a little cleanup until it’s better (refactor). Then move on.
2. Timebox - Don’t let the cleanup phase drag on forever. Timebox it, and be willing to throw away the work if you run out of time. Sometimes, you’ll fail at the Campsite Rule, and that’s okay.
3. Big things should be projects - If something is big enough that it violates the Campsite Rule, either get it in the priority list, or don’t worry about it.

The Campsite Rule isn’t about heroic efforts to fix everything. It’s about sustainable, incremental improvement that makes your work environment better for everyone.

Thank you

I learned this too from Jim Shore.

Image by Kanenori from Pixabay