Lessons Learned #3 — On Time
It’s 8:07am on a Wednesday morning. I’m in a local cafe, surrounded by people having meetings.
Every couple of minutes, I check the time — even though I know it’s only been a couple of minutes.
I’m doing mental calculations: five minutes to drop off my laptop and grab my bag, five minutes to the station, fifteen minutes to work, gives me… twenty five minutes to get this post done.
This is what the last year or so of building Small Fires has looked like — stolen hours of brain space before and after work, on weekends and while my body is telling me to sleep.
Of course, there have also been hours spent with others — collaborating, talking, idea-storming, venting, with mentors, friends and fellow social entrepreneurs — and this has been such a lifeline.
All of this time in has been building to a deadline of something out: a book to be specific, by the end of the year.
Because in my head, that’s enough time for a book to be made. And also Christmas would be a good time to launch something that is an ideal gift for kids, right?
As it turns out, maybe. But maybe not for me.
This deadline has meant a lot of chasing, a lot of worrying, a lot of mental calculations working backwards to an imaginary finish line.
It’s meant putting unnecessary stress on the amazing people I’m sharing this journey with — Lillian, an amazing change-maker, who the first book is about, and Monica, the incredible illustrator who is bringing our vision to life.
I spent the last few months racing so much, that I forgot what I was even racing towards.
Perhaps exhaustion?
When I really sat with why the deadline was there and why it gave me a sick feeling in my stomach to think about moving it, I knew there was some self-reflection and self-confrontation to do.
Here are some beliefs it turned out I had:
- Yearly cycles are the ultimate timeframes to set goals and achieve them.
- Everything done so far means nothing until the first book is finished.
- Being a good organisation means setting a deadline and being able to deliver on it.
Yeah. There was some stuff to sit with.
I’m not going to address every counter argument to the points above, the ones I’ve been working through and telling myself.
Instead I’ve been trying to focus on the why of Small Fires, beyond making diverse books for children.
While the product is so important for so many reasons, I also started this journey to help create new business norms in the world, ones where the means is equally as important as the ends.
Through my work at Code for Australia, working alongside some truly amazing people (like Lina Patel and Alvaro Maz) I’ve experienced first-hand what this looks like and how it can affect people, and communities more broadly.
And it was in stark contrast to my prior experiences in and around tech companies.
A few years back, I stumbled upon an article called ‘Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break’ which summed up exactly what that fundamental difference was.
Reflecting on that chart now, I can see there are ways of working together, the business model and structure and the decision-making mechanisms that are reflective of being a Zebra — or in my eyes, being the kind of organisation I think the world needs more of.
So, as always, I ask myself — what is the commitment I want to take from this?
- Sitting with those uncomfortable decisions to uncover what’s really the root of something has been difficult, but so therapeutic. This feels like something that needs to become more of a practice.
- An immediate commitment is to moving our end of year deadline. At the moment, we’re on track to deliver something in the early new year but we’ll see how we go!
- Something I’ve been doing on and off is writing down some “small win moments” — when something like a new illustration, or getting to pitch at Melbourne SOUP happens. Going forward, I think this will be a much more regular thing!
Note: I didn’t finish this blog in that 25 minutes. It’s now the following day, around 7:30am and I’m writing these last words from my bedroom. “Kidogo kidogo hujaza kibaba” is one of my favourite Swahili sayings and roughly translates as, little by little fills the cup. I couldn’t agree more.
Lessons Learned is a regular series about the many things I’m learning as I build Small Fires. Part reflection, part working in the open, these learnings are here to share what I’m discovering and also give an insight into the operations and thinking behind the organisation.
