Startups & Time Management: 10 Reasons to Punch The Clock
Last week, a friend shared a link to this Apple’s “Planet of the Apps” reality series, a show about app and their creators. The ad above, which has since been taken down, supposedly quotes one founder as saying, “I rarely get to see my kids. That’s a risk you have to take.” Bull.
I’ve been an entrepreneur for more than 30 years in one form or another. I’ve proudly and obsessively poured every waking hour into the work I had to do. I’ve sacrificed every dollar and relationship to keep doing what I thought I had to do. I’ve tuned out everything else in my life in the pursuit of success. In short, I’ve done all the stupid things that should never be encouraged.
With time comes experience. With experience comes perspective. Today, I’m not just a founder, but also a father and part of a family. I have a better system for measuring what matters and what works. I changed what success means for the better.
Fortunately, I’m not alone in this understanding. Notable founder, Jason Fried of Basecamp, initially called this ad out on Twitter and a vibrant discussion ensued. While most agreed, there are still countless founders and startup employees who don’t know why it’s bad.
Here’s just 10 reasons your time is worth more than you know.
1. Ambition is Not Your Best
Ambition is what many believe sets apart the winners and the whiners. Of course, it’s easy to be determined and even easier to dream big, but success is paved in increments. It is easy to rationalize that my goals as a founder/employee are at odds with every other pursuit.
Of course, there’s one simple change possible — change your perspective. Focusing on doing your best, every time, all the time, you not only move more quickly towards your goal, but every leap is the best possible.
2. Time is Not Work
Just because you are putting in time at the office doesn’t mean you’re actually working. Leaving aside the time socializing and building relationships with your peers, there’s tremendous waste an inefficiency in how we spend our time. From browser rabbit holes to useless meetings, all sorts of activities are decidedly not work.
One important trait parents learn is how to work efficiently and effectively. When all your ability to work is time boxed by a child, you know that the only window to get things done is the window you have. It helps you find focus fast and to move as best you can. You don’t need a child to do this, but once you have one you definitely will.
3. Bad Culture Breeds Bad Creatures
Founders take pride in developing a thriving culture at their company. We plaster our walls with the words that matter most to us. We hire and encourage specific kinds of behavior and relationships to create the ideal work environment.
In practice, however, we often pollute those very ideals with our realtime expectations. We expect everyone to be responsive at all times. We judge those who seemingly leave early or get in late. We second-guess both commitment and productivity as we try and micro-manage and model everyone by our expectations.
It can’t be both ways. Hire right and trust them to do what’s best at all times. If you can’t, either you don’t know what the best looks like or you’re not hiring the right people.
4. You Can’t Work If You’re Dead
Work can make you sick. “Don’t come in if you’re sick.” A simple comment that sounds like we care. Of course, the expectation is that you stay home and work while protecting the productivity of everyone else at the office.
It’s easy to work yourself nearly to death. From a lingering cold that persists for months, to permanent bags under your eyes, to missed workouts on to full mental breakdowns and depression, work can drive us to the brink. It’s incredible what we can do to ourselves when we’re not paying attention.
Living in the shadow of success is cold and damp, step outside of it sometimes.
5. Care About Companies That Care About You
There are a lot of ways to judge a company, but none should matter more than the culture and spirits of its employees. The traditional sales pitch points to the amazing success or opportunity that the company can/will offer. But at what cost?
We’re just now starting to see how toxic achieving success at all costs can be and what happens when it rains down from the top. Some people thrive in this environment, but it’s definitely not for everyone. Ask lots of questions that matter to you, not just about what matters to the company.
6. More is Easy, Less is Hard
The always-on mentality is just papering over the harder truth, we don’t want to be more efficient. It’s easy to just continually plow more and more time into anything, but there are diminishing returns on human output. As much as we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re always at peak performance, the truth is we have better moments.
Mastering how to do more with less time is not just better for your life outside of work, but also for inside. Operational efficiency should be a goal for every individual and organization. Do more, faster, so you can get to the next or another thing — stop hiding behind inefficiency.
7. There Was a You Before Work
What was your favorite thing to do as a child? What about in high school? College? With your friends? With your family? Once we become “adults" we often she’d most of these things, falling back to a shorter set that we can more readily manage.
Startups have a way of snuffing out even those things. There’s the work you do at the office, the work you do while home, and the work you do on the weekends. So. Many. Kinds. Of. Work!
That snackable media and Reality TV can’t just be blamed on millennials. We’re all just as guilty, lately, of living life 15s at a time now. And even then, we’re watching someone else live their life. That can’t be life.
Find something, anything, outside you can enjoy — as a start.
8. Being Away Makes You Aware
Inspiration keeps us alert and enables us to connect new ideas to old ones. In some circumstances, necessity drives the kind of creativity we need to solve problems. For most others, especially those that have the biggest impact, stepping away from the problem often provides the perspective needed to see around or over.
Being away from work isn’t about not doing work — it’s usually impossible to turn off parts of your brain just because the environment is different. What time away does provide, however, is a changing canvas for us to think and frame everything that matters. Go find your canvas.
9. Remember What Matters
For many, work is the most fulfilling thing in their life. Studies have shown that when people.enjoy their work, it passes effortlessly for them. Those looking in often can’t relate or understand.
A better question to ask, however, is why is that work so fulfilling. Are there other ways to achieve the same joy? There is not one ultimate thing. In fact, if anything, the thing we value the most changes as we age and evolve. The best we can do is be mindful of what matters and how we sacrifice it.
Do you know what matters most?
10. Fame & Fortune Aren’t Likely
Startups fail. All. The. Time. It is likely safe to venture that not one of them failed because you went home for dinner, or spent time with your kids, or went to the gym. There is always more work.
Startups succeed because the people that are drawn into its gravitational field are passionate, committed and resourceful. They succeed because people learn to work together collaboratively. They function like families as long as possible.
Startups do fail because people grow complacent, because they squander precious time, and because they don’t effectively communicate. Startups that put its needs, at any cost, over those of the hard-working people who make every minute possible, are showing what they really are.
Regardless, startups aren’t usually vehicles for wealth and riches. Very few founders and even fewer employees will survive to see a life-changing exit. However, every person has the chance to learn a tremendous amount about almost anything in a highly concentrated manner. We learn what we’re made up by staring down the impossible and the life we want as we run the gauntlet.
Startups more often pay dividends in experiences, not dollars.
I can’t tell you what matters, nor should this be considered an attempt to do so. It is a reflection on decades of doing things the only way I knew best, until something better became self-evident. I hope you find it faster than I did, but the journey is just as important as the destination.
Additional Reading
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