“Challenging the Status Quo vs. Being Stupid — Tim Ferriss”
I week ago I wrote a post “How to financially support yourself while building your startup”, which I answered how this problem can be addressed by building your startup as a side-project.
Nevertheless the issue is that a day has only 24 hours; don’t be shocked are just 24- (very informative post right?)
Seriously now the question arises is:
Where I will find the time to build my startup as a side-project?
Do I need to sleep less?
Do I need to stop having a social life?
Do I need to change dramatically my life-style?
Do I need to break up with my girlfriend or boyfriend……..?
Those and many other thoughts coming to our minds and the simple answer is to say to ourselves; I just have no time.
I just have no time; Is it a valid answer or just an excuse?
I will leave the question be answered by you after the completion of the 4 must Do’s, that our ultra-successful entrepreneurs are recommending.
I want to open a small parenthesis here; I want to be honest with you. All the thoughts that I wrote above that coming to our minds as potential solutions, although that I don’t suggest to be adopted by you was followed by me, is not something that I am proud of but I have to confess it.
Everything rely on one question
I know that those actions could be translated as sacrifices that you have to do and life is about priorities and trade-offs, but believe me there is a better way, this is not the path that you want to follow. I know it from personal experience don’t follow this extreme path, the most of the times it lead to nowhere.
Having said that, although that our 4 Must Do’s have nothing to do with the simple thoughts that I enumerated above, one simple truth has to be stressed so as to clear things up.
The path towards entrepreneurship requires many sacrifices and prioritization for what really matter for us and what not, this is crucial. But in the end of the day literally everything rely to only one straightforward question, which I will reiterate for the thousand time.
How bad do you want it?
The success or failure of our startup fundamentally will be determined by a clear answer on that simple question, everything else is gibberish.
Nevertheless, the purpose of this post is to elaborate the huge difference between been efficient or work for the work’s sake.
Here we are, I am supper excited to share them with you because I know from experience that work, is not rocket science I’ve just modeled what our startup gurus are preaching.
4 Must Do’s to create time for building your startup
1) Monoidealism
“Monoidealism is the state of focusing your energy and attention on only one thing, without conflicts. This is the state of human attention at its most productive: clear, focused Attention and effort directed at one (and only one) subject for an extended period of time” – Josh Kaufman
In other words the concept of multi-tasking that we’ve been taught as the recipe for success, it’s just another myth that somebody invented as a solution on our behalves. As research clearly shows the more tasks you are trying to do simultaneously, the less your performance reduces in each of the respective tasks you are working on.
Josh Kaufman in the extensive research that he carried out for the development of his best-selling book, comprehensively articulate why multi-tasking doesn’t work and what to do as alternative (monoidealism).
Action: Put multi-tasking at bay and try that alternative
2) Parkinson Law
“Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance & complexity in relation to the time allocated for its completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline. If I give you 24 hour to complete a project, the time pressure forces you to focus on execution, and you have no choice but to do only the bare essentials”. –Tim Ferriss
This principle is super importance and undoubtedly I classify it as the most important of our 4 Must Do’s. It’s amazing how effective it is, can you relate with that effect? In my case I can’t remember how many times I was overwhelmed by overcomplicating things and confused the important with the unimportant.
Action: Set very strict deadlines for the completion of your projects and see what happens. Keep in mind that the deadline must be unchangeable regardless what. Treat it like an exam, no matter what, your exam is tomorrow and act accordingly. Don’t worry about perfection, been extremely efficient doesn’t mean whatsoever that the outcome won’t be superior.
3) Pareto’s Law (80-20 Rule)
“Pareto’s Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness- lazy thinking and indiscriminate action”. –Tim Ferriss
In simple words what Tim Ferriss speaks about, is that in every action of our business and personal life this principle is prevalent. This principle can only be fully understood when applied.
Action: Try conducting an experiment with this core principle. Make a list with working and personal tasks that you are doing in a daily basis and categorize them based on the impact that you believe will have in terms of results.
Now measure each one of these actions and see which of them are indeed necessary and which just wasting your time.
Finally take some action with your tasks in the list; decide for each one of them what to do:
a) Complete
b) Delegate
c) Eliminate
d) Postpone
I am doing this exercise twice a month and have a huge impact on the available time for doing what matter for me (building my own startup)
4) Most Important Tasks
“A (MIT) is a critical task that will create the most important results you’re looking to achieve. At the beginning of every day, create a list of 2 to 3 MITs, then focus on getting them done as quickly as possible”. –Josh Kaufman
This approach is immensely useful especially in the weekends. Personally what I am doing is; every Friday before go for sleep devote 20 minutes define which tasks must be done this weekend and I can’t compromise with their completion even for joke.
Then on Saturday and Sunday dive one them from the very morning, I do nothing than them, no emails, no calls, no chats, no interruptions. Afterwards you have all the afternoon to spend it as you wish, but in the morning you have to maintain laser focus towards accomplishing your MITs no matter what.
Action: At least on your weekends apply that rule, in my case I am dedicating one hour in my weekday’s doing that as well, but I know it is not something for everyone therefore stick initially with doing it only the weekends and see the results on hand.
Sum it up
Going back to the simple answer that we can convince ourselves about; I just have no time. This will effectively achieve only one thing; to put our dreams on hold and leave the scariest word in the world to appear to the picture which is; Later.
All of us know that the story does not end to later but more often than not later becomes never, and lead to an average and miserable life. Nobody of us can settle with this.
The antidote to later is now, the solutions are there, the question is what you select to do?
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Please tell us how you intend to address the; I just don’t have time “option”, in the comments below
“It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains”. —THOMAS H. HUXLEY
[Contributed by Andreas Aravis, founder of No More Startup Myths. He is a 25-year old junior startup development specialist, blogger and aspiring entrepreneur.]
