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Rachel Astley
Pursuing a vision for a digital nomad lifestyle

Startup ideas stage — Panic stations

I am currently in what some people call the ‘ideation’ stage, which is investigating one or many ideas to see if there is value in pursuing.

Anyone that knows me through work will know that I am an executor, I take the idea/project/product and deliver it. Therefore, this stage is the most alien to me and I feel will be the hardest in my journey. The problem when you are looking to start something yourself is that the options of what you can do are endless and this week I have felt quite overwhelmed with these, to the point that I am getting nothing productive done. Therefore, this has resulted in many waves of panic as I get myself started:

Idea panic

Before starting, I had about 4 or so ideas I wanted to pursue. After a bit of research, rather than reduce this to a shortlist of 2, I seem to have ended up increasing this to 8!! While this may not necessarily be a bad thing in the long run, it is an example of how distracted I am getting by things (“Ooh, a link to a wine school franchise … ”), increasing the complexity of the task ahead and leading to a sense of panic.

Time panic

There are alot of hours in the day and I am not utilising these in the most efficient way possible (due to the first point) and it freaks me out! When I worked in corporate life, I was constantly pushed by someone else towards a set goal, whether my client or MD, meaning I gave 120% for as many hours as necessary. My vision is to fit work around life and now I have the flexibility to do that, I have to adjust to the new reality which is a little alien!

Expectation panic

This is more my expectations than anyone elses. I get bored and restless with the creative journey, wanting all the answers right now so I can act on them. However, slowing down, allowing my brain to adjust and process everything and not putting pressure on myself to have the answers right now will help … this is easier said than done!

So afew things I am going to try to do each day is:

  1. Stop reading useless articles on the internet. I know this is probably a useless internet article but I find writing it therapeutic so if noone reads it, it won’t have been wasted time.
  2. Keep focus to 1–3 things/tasks per day. The larger the to-do list the more panic ensues.
  3. Plan for the day, the day BEFORE. Otherwise, half my morning is wasted with planning and distractions.
  4. Work around my attention span. I’ve learned this week that my attention span is probably 60–90 mins on one task and the longer I spend past this time, the less productive I am. This has been the hardest thing so far.
  5. Don’t mut so much pressure on myself! Noone else is, so why should I.

I hope as my ideas get more shape and plans become firmer, the panic will subside and I will fit into my natural execution mode.

I would like to round up by saying, that while all the panicking is a little traumatic at times, I am not regretting my decision to leave corporate life in any way whatsoever. If we don’t take risks, how can we feel alive?