How to get things done and not die

Hampus Jakobsson
Thinking about Startups

Accomplishing something usually means massive amounts of work and stress. Product-market fit feels like a combination of three things: winning, insufficiency, and, most of all, drowning. Any busy person recognizes that there is never enough time. There is just too much to do. This has happened to me too, and I see it often, so I’ll give you all the tips I have.

Focus

First of all, decide what you want. It might sound trivial, but it isn’t. Many live their life on autopilot or think that they have to play the hand that they have been dealt. You don’t. I wrote a separate guide on How to become the captain of your own ship. You should not live for work, but there are times in life when it is hard to accomplish somethings without a hard focus.

Secondly, to get great things done, you will need to prioritize. Pick the thing you will excel at and then down prioritize the rest. You will not be a great girlfriend, have a beach body, build up your savings, or read a book a week. You will probably not watch any TV-series, be updated on the news, or ever check social media.

Don’t forget about life, but be great at one thing and allow yourself to put other goals on pause. It will make you less stressed if you have decided what you have and not have time for.

Thirdly, realize what is Core and Context. What do you need to ace, and what can be done in an OK manner. Maybe you don’t reply with proofread emails anymore. Maybe you don’t do your slides anymore. Maybe you don’t code/design/run meetings/do sales/recruit/etc.

For the Context, the solutions are: delegate/outsource, do with lower quality, or ignore. Sometimes a simple tool might solve the problem; I swear by Grammarly. There is a reason why some people have simple wardrobes.

Find your cue. Often, I think you need to see when you are about to do something you shouldn’t. Or, find ways to stop yourself. I have found that by holding my hand over my mouth, I refrain from commenting. Every time I get a “control freak feeling”, I ask myself who I am fooling.

Balance

You will need to do some things to stay sane and functional, but it will be with a different focus. Meet friends to relax. Go to the gym to get your back and neck pain to go away. Swim to stop thinking. Drink a glass of wine to fall asleep. (Don’t forget to enjoy it though.)

If you have a partner or other person in your life, make sure to talk to them and set expectations. When you are with them, be with them, don’t work.

Sleep well. Working at night is not cool. (Unless you like to work at night and sleep during the day.) Working tired is inefficent. You need to make things work. Build a sustainable rythm.

Take time off. You will need vacation, a weekend without work on your mind, a day at the beach. Read fiction instead of work related. Find a good game to play. You will find that sometimes when your mind has one focus and takes a break, it works better on that subject even you are not sweating it. When you do take time off — cherish it!

Your focus and accomplishments aren’t worth anything if you end up breaking yourself or hating yourself.

Planning

Treat your time with intent. I used to divide my time in White, Black, and Gray. White means productive, Black rest, and Gray is transport between. You need both White and Black; it is Gray that is your enemy.

If you are stuck in traffic on the way to the meeting, you can stress & gripe (Gray), prepare the meeting (White), or relax, clear the mind, and listen to music (as Black as you can be driving). If someone offers you a glass of wine; great if you can move to black time, bad if you want to have another 30 minutes of White. And, the reverse goes for coffee. Make the most use of your time!

Btw, napping on the plane instead of watching a bad movie on a micro-screen is always a great choice.

Say no. Yes, just say you don’t have time. Be polite. All the friends that ask for input on their deck, just reply that you can’t look at it in the coming two weeks and apologize. They will get the hint. I wrote a post on how I am managing my calendar.

Use a todo-list to guide you. I used to write a todo-list every Sunday. Use a Post-It, tear it off and attach it to the back of the Post-It pad. On Sunday evening, take items from the weekly list and write it on a separate note called Monday. During the Monday, take the most important items first. Eat the frog. When someone comes bursting in, look at your list and either decide what they want is more important/urgent, or ask them to send you an email.

Monday evening, write the Tuesday list, which are things that survived Monday, and new and old from the weekly list. And so it goes. Some things survive to the next week. It also teaches you how many things you are able to get done and what need to be put in Context.

There is some elegance with the fact that it is a simple, and real-estate-wise, limited list. I can’t do 20 things in a week anyway. (Probably 1–2 things a day are realistic and the rest are maintenance/check-ups.) Every time I start to use a digital list, it grows beyond control.

Also — your inbox is not your todo list. You write your tasks. It is not an open list for others to add things to.

Use your calendar to block time. As a leader, you will have your own tasks, plus your team is your product. You are there for them, which means you often end up doing your own work in the evening or early morning. That is not sustainable. Book time with yourself. Have a recurring “Improve sales material” meeting with yourself (or topic of choice). Every time you get ideas or subtasks, opened the next meeting and add bullets to it. When the meeting comes, you have a focused slot with clear tasks. And, combined with your Post-It todo list, you have magic.

Use your calendar for Balance too — book Gym time, Dinner with Friends or Game time — to make sure they don’t get pushed out.

Cleanse and debug

Finally, learn mindfulness. Learning how to relax your mind will give you clarity —which means you will be smarter in the moment and less stressed. It will separate ego, stress, noise, and all your OCDs from you focused and calm. An understanding of how your state of mind is impacting your bandwidth. When you’re in a restricted state of mind, everything seems compelling, complicated, and urgent.

And, you don’t need more time to do this. Every wait is a mindfulness opportunity. I biked to work with such a resting, robotic, blank mind that I never remember anything but getting on and off the ride.

Build routines to not have to decide on the small things. Write down a list of everything you need to do so that you can visualize it and not need to “hold it in your head.”

Don’t be stressed when you lose your attention. That is great; it meant you noticed! How many times during the day do you are you distracted or unfocused without knowing? When people make you stressed, they are just giving you practice. You won’t build muscle by just holding weight, but it is when you lift it. Every time you bring back attention, that is when you are getting better.

“Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.”

— Marcus Aurelius

I see stocism as a part of mindfulness, and as useful. And, check out Hanlon’s razor. Realize that you are not the magnet of bad luck. Dark days pass. Sometimes when working on one thing, your mind starts to spin and you get anxious or nervous for things you can’t affect. Learn to see this and drop it.

Don’t die

Ask yourself every year if you want to “renew”: Should you spend another 12 months with the same high ambition? If you can’t get time to make ends meet for years, you are doing the wrong thing or the wrong way. Don’t spend your life forgetting to live. Also, don’t spend your life building something you don’t want to build.

Summary

  1. What do you want to do? Do that well and nothing else. Say no.
  2. All other things, should help you to do the One thing well.
  3. Spend your time intently — white or black. Get rid of gray.
  4. Use a todo-list. And plan meetings with yourself.
  5. Learn to clear and focus your mind.
  6. Don’t end up working for 5+ years on something meaningless.

What did I miss? Do you have any tricks?

Responses (2)

What are your thoughts?

Great points here. Difficult to give yourself black time as a founder (it feels bad), but have to understand it’s for the purpose.

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Sir, that was awesome. Following..

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