To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.
Whilst I’ve known this for a while, it’s been more apparent in this startup attempt, of the importance of protecting your time.
The unfortunate truth is that all of us have less time in life than we would like to. You never really know when your time is going to be up and most of us project our consciousness into the future, never really taking stock of the life we literally are right now.
Whilst I do get occasionally stressed and frustrated at work, I do genuinely enjoy doing what I do. I always have. Maybe I would enjoy other engineering careers, but internet & software is where I put the last 30 years of my life so there is a lot of sunk cost bias.
I also genuinely enjoy being self-employed and having my freedom of choice to make decisions (even those that lead to mistakes) and life freedom in general (as opposed to a nine to five). I certainly could have had an easier and more profitable life so far if I had taken the employee route but then I wouldn’t have had all the life experiences i’ve had.
The point is, when you are doing something that you enjoy, by default your time is reasonably well invested. If you are on the right path for you, then regardless of how inefficient or ineffective you are, fundamentally you are still making good use of your time.
It’s when you really don’t like what you’re doing, or where you are going to work in the morning hating the prospect, that you are wasting time.
And fortunately, right now, I am on the right path for me. So that means at least at the base level my time is being invested in the right area.
However, for the days 50 to 100, I want to up my game considerably. This doesn’t mean running around in circles faster … it means:
- doing less (paradoxically)
- doing more (paradoxically)
- automation
Doing Less By Saying No
There is one rule here. It is about saying NO with wisdom. Saying NO to the unimportant is the one thing that I want to implement. Whether thats a phone call, a meeting, a project idea, attempting to nurture a friendship, a task, social media, etc. Saying no to an unwarranted impulse to check email or social. But for me especially as someone who can generate a new idea every hour, it’s about saying no to those and staying focused on what I need to get built.
Doing More By Focusing On Key Areas
The rule here is to systemise. I hope eventually to be in the position to build a team, but in reality it’s about optimising myself first. Having said no to the non-important by doing less, you do more by consistently focusing on key areas. As an example, LinkedIn is a key area. I’ve dabbled in it for the last 50 days for the first time taking it somewhat seriously, but I also know that I am not optimising each post to deliver value to others. So that has to change.
Well Thought Out Automation
More on this another day…
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