Schedules Are Awesome
If you were to ask for one piece of advice for starting a business, I would say “make a schedule”.
Of all the “ah-ha” moments we have had in starting our business…moments where a small change has had a huge impact…scheduling out tasks has definitely been the ah-ha to end all ah-ha’s. Seriously!
When I first started doing side projects outside of my fulltime job, I un-intelligently went with a brute-force approach. Basically, I would just work away every spare hour I had. At first, this created results. But after doing this for a few months, progress began to wane drastically.
I would sit at my desk and stare into the abyss of my computer screen. I had a giant list of to-do’s and absolutely no motivation to actually do them. I would spend every hour of free-time I had, yet the needle would inch forward ever so slightly.
Even when I did decide to take a “night off” (which was rare) I would feel overwhelming guilt.
So basically, when I did work, I was getting very little done. And when I wasn’t working, I never felt “recharged”.
Making a schedule changed everything. And when I say “schedule”, I literally mean write some stuff on a whiteboard. That’s what I did. No apps, no spreadsheet, just planning the week on a whiteboard was all it took.
For one, writing it all down frees your mind. When you have your schedule “memorized”, not only do you tend to forget things, but you also are fatiguing yourself all day long. You don’t realize it, but your brain is “working” to remember even a very basic schedule. It’s like carrying a 10-pound weight around all day. 10 pounds is not heavy, but over the course of the day it drains you. Just writing it down is a super easy, simple way to save your precious mental energy.
Second, when you schedule things out, you are far less likely to overcommit. For example, if you decide that on Tuesdays and Thursdays you will work on your side project, you will not “accidentally” sign up for other things on those nights (softball, volunteering, etc.) Those days/times become sacred, untouchable blocks of time. Even when the week gets hectic, you know you will at least be able to work on those nights.
Thirdly, nights off become guilt-free. When you schedule it out, you no longer feel guilt about not working! You are able to go out to the movies, go out to each, hang out with friends, whatever…and you are ACTUALLY recharging your batteries, instead of just moping around thinking “What am I not doing right now?” You can fully enjoy nights off, and maximize their benefit.
Finally, your work nights themselves become much more productive. If you have decided to work on your business two nights a week, your brain understands that “this is GO TIME”. When you start feeling tired, you will no longer be able to tell yourself “I’ll just finish this tomorrow…” because tomorrow is not a work day! You will be motivated and driven to make those work nights “count”. I also found that my “browsing around” decreased, because those precious few work hours are finite. You can no longer pretend that time is limitless.
So overall, this has probably been the single most useful change we have made with our business. Just write out your week on a whiteboard on Sunday night, and you WILL see results even after one week. You will get more done in less time, and the overall experience becomes ten times more enjoyable.
