Day 29: Less Is More

I've been chewing on one question in my mind for some time now.

How much should I try and accomplish in 2021? (Is that even the right question to ask? )

I have a bias toward doing more in a variety of things. Whether that's in writing or engineering, I always aim to do as much as I can. Yet, striving to accomplish more has its faults.

In my case, I find it hard to focus when I'm doing several things at once. One particular case is my newsletter Founder to Founder (F2F). I've made a lot of progress with F2F, but I could have done more if I was more focused on the Case Studies (paid content) instead of adding additional features to the Startup Spotlight (free content).

The lack of focus on the Case Studies has slowed the growth of the newsletter. I was trying to do more with the free content instead of paid content that brings in cold, hard cash! Fortunately, my fiddling around with free content has helped me discover a repeatable process for generating new content and soliciting feedback.

F2F is just one of many examples in my life where a lack of focus holds me back. I'm wired to shoot for the moon and do many things well, but these past six weeks have shown me that I need to have more respect for the limited time I have outside of my full-time job.

Forty hours is nearly a quarter of the time you have in a week. It takes up a huge amount of time. I realize when you combine the time spent preparing for a full work-week, a full-time job is significantly more than forty hours a week.

Which leaves you with less time for other pursuits outside of your job. If you don't have any energy after your job, you won't have the discipline and mental focus needed to make progress in those pursuits.

These last six months, especially these last six weeks, have made this lesson crystal clear for me.

I'm not in grad school anymore where my time was more fungible and my schedule more flexible. I've been living like I still am, and that's not the case.

The question isn't to accomplish or not accomplish a lot this year. I will always try and do that.

The question is given that I have less time, what are the few areas of my life that I can spend it to achieve more success?

I'll have the answer for you tomorrow.