What you need….
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure. – Mark Twain
What you need is simple. All below are metaphorical, not physical
1) Cojones – Extra large
2) A Bulldog’s jaws – Once you grab on to something, you don’t quit.
3) Bulletproof vest – There’ll always be detractors, hanger oners, I-told-you-so’ers. Let it all bounce off.
4) A Dog neck cone – For focus. You only look back for lessons.
I’d add more, but with those 4, you can accomplish pretty much anything.
Productivity hack: Work in batches
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. – Mark Twain
This is one of the single-most effective productivity hacks I’ve used.
Batch your work, throw it on your calendar, then when the time comes, power through it. For example, put 3 or 4 15-minute blocks on your calendar for email. Then shut your email off, only turning it on when it’s time. If it’s important, they’ll text you. If it’s really really important, they’ll call you. If there’s a massive earthquake, the screams and shaking will tip you off.
Really, no email is *that* time sensitive.
Same goes for other categories like sales, research, hiring, customer outreach, etc. Here’s a sample use case:
Monday – Saturday
Email: 9-915am, 1130-1145am, 2-215pm, 430-415pm
Sales: 12-1230pm, 3-330pm
Hiring: 11-1130am
Research: 4-420pm
and so on….
A few additional benefits
- Tasks generally expand to fill the time alloted. Having hard and fast time buckets naturally forces us to be more effective. If you have only 15 minutes to power through 100 emails, you’ll notice yourself being more selective and efficient.
- Knowing that these tasks will be taken care of in their due-time frees up the mind to focus on whatever’s at hand, not all the 100-something things that nip at a founder’s attention at any given time.
- The feeling of satisfaction as you check off that block of time and the work you accomplished.
- Peace of mind. Trust me, non-stop context switching is a huge source of stress.
In fact, if you want more peace of mind, throw your internet guilty pleasures like Facebook, Techcrunch, Twitter, HackerNews, etc. on the calendar as well. Give yourself those 20 minutes of candy, let your brain melt, then get back to the next task at hand – the ones that matter, the day in and day out ones that’ll move your company forward.
The nature of reality
I want to put a ding in the universe – Steve Jobs
This is my latest theory on the nature of reality. It goes something like this…..
Reality is neutral, it is nothing but a blank void. It’s our focus that creates the path ahead.
Remember the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Indy has to solve the final riddle to get to the Holy Grail? He’s standing at the edge of a cliff, no clear solution in sight, and he sucks in a deep breath and takes a full step out. What happens? Instead of falling into nothingness, he steps onto a bridge – one that only appeared if the step was taken.
I want to take this metaphor further. Imagine being on the edge of the cliff, you step out, and wherever you step, is the direction you go. That’s what our focus is. In the blank void it literally creates the step in front of us. Up, down, left, right, diagonal, moment by moment.
You focus on the positive, that’s the next step. You focus on the negative, that’s the next step. Step by step by step, we create the paths of our lives.
If you think about it, that’s pretty much the only control we have – what we focus on.
As a founder (of a startup in my case), this is valuable to know. The journey is a roller coaster of intensity and emotion. I’ve had to let co-founders go, one burned out and couldn’t bear looking at code. Moments like these, you just want to crawl into bed, pull the sheets over your head, and stare at the darkness.
But here’s what I’ve learned. What’s going to get you out of bed is focus. The most powerful question I’ve found with these experiences is a simple one: “How can I leverage this to move the company forward?” That simple question shifts the focus from inaction to action.
And once you shift your focus, you’re taking the step to solutions, and over time, you and your company will be better for it. Step by step by step…..
Masters of Sand Hill
It’s good to be the King – Mel Brooks
Me, to a VC buddy, imagining his office in Sand Hill: ”Your big corner VC office with leather walls and barefoot admins and cowering entrepreneurs waiting their turn by the moat.”
His response: ”A VC office looks more like a shoeshiner, polishing the shoes of entrepreneurs while they type vigorously away on blackberries and laptops.”
The reality, I figure, somewhere in the middle.
In the now – bam wow!
You can find yourself by coming into the present – @tinybuddha
Email conversation with a good friend on being in the moment:
Me: somewhat stressed, need to be more relaxed like you.
Him: You just haven’t taken enough beatings yet. This is a trial by fire and you will be better off regardless of the outcome. Once you accept that you can only learn from your past but can’t live in it or invest any emotion in it your stress level will go down. When we live in the now its like BAM WOW!!!
Me: Very wise. Any tips on living in the now?
Him: Enjoy it, love it – be open to everything but focused on the tasks at hand. Your gonna get hit kicked and spit on, roll with most of it fight back with some of it and do nothing with the rest. When you get in that rythym the universe opens and shit happens.
Pulling a Cortez
Get rich or die tryin’ – 50 Cent
Over lunch with a smart friend, I mentioned this fantasy I had a few weeks ago – of finding someone to replace me, turning over the reigns of the company, and just walking away. I’ve vested enough so that when the company makes it, I’ll be just fine. It was after a particularly long stretch of work, weeks and weeks of all-nighters. Good stuff, mind you, but sometimes I feel like I’m in a marathon made of a series of sprints.
After I shared this fantasy, I stopped, looked at him, then burst out laughing. ”I can’t walk away,” I said. ”I’ve put all the money I had into this, all my waking hours, even my dreams are about work, and when I’m not working I’m still thinking about work. I have no choice but to pull this off!”
Of course, the fantasy of walking away was just a momentary one. You couldn’t pay me enough to leave. As I look back at the choices I’ve made, the other opportunities I’ve given up – the ships burning behind me – even if I was to put my obsessive drive aside, I would have no choice but to move forward.
Crazy as that sounds, it’s a good place to be. If you’ve founded something and taken it to its full conclusion, you know what I’m talking about.
