4 ms·
I'm working on a startup. My to-do list accumulates tasks faster than I can take items off it. In fact, between starred emails, pen & paper, smartphone apps,
by bg182 15y ago
I'm working on a startup. My to-do list accumulates tasks faster than I can take items off it. In fact, between starred emails, pen & paper, smartphone apps, web to-dos etc I'm accumulating to-do lists faster than I'm getting through them. I sleep 2 or 3 hours a night. I have no time for friends and my girlfriend is mad at me. I'm in a constant state of stress and anxiety. I can't figure out if I'm on the verge of success or a good for nothing mess.
Do I really have time for AwesomeButUseless.com? Why, of course I do :)
- Swizec 15y agoIf you're busy, you are very likely doing it wrong -> http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-doing-something-wrong-the-surprisingly-relaxed-lives-of-elite-achievers/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-do... I was a lot like you once, until I suddenly realized that taking a step back every now and then actually brings a net positive in productivity because a lot of the time when you're busy and stressed what is actually happening is you're just doing work but not getting things done. My suggestion to you: take a look at your todo's, delete everything that's been there for more than two weeks. Then delete everything where people don't die if you do it tomorrow instead of today. Or, you know, completely disregard this comment, get back to your life, and watch yourself burn out faster than celluloid film.
- bg182 15y agoWell, my comments above were meant as a joke. Mostly. Good article. Of course not all work that I do is the productive, or the so-called 'deliberate practice' kind. As referenced by the fact that I'm following up to my own comments on Hacker News. However an important difference between running a startup and playing a musical instrument is that I'd argue its a lot harder to know what the really effective work is, which means you'll generally have to try a few more things. No, I'm not quite as bad as the charicature I've described above. I've found that doing a bit of daily exercise is one of the most important things not to give up when working on a startup. You feel and sleep a lot better which affects everything.
- Swizec 15y agoThat's good - I guess with startup people these days it's getting hard to distinguish charicature from reality ... not sure that's a good thing.
- bg182 15y agoNo kidding. From the responses I'm definitely going to have to tone down my british sarcasm in the future.
- robocat 15y agoI think sarcasm can be easily mistaken as trolling, condescension, or stupidity. Personally I avoid it online until I have seen it regularly used and encouraged on a website/forum (also the tells/syntactic-indicators of sarcasm and how obvious you need to make it vary greatly depending upon site community).
- reinhardt 15y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law
- LeafStorm 15y agoDespite the fact that HN is run by Y Combinator, not everyone here is a startup founder.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- bg182 15y agoThink you are misinterpreting a bit. I just thought the URL was funny enough to make a joke about.
- thibaut_barrere 15y agoGiven the description you gave of your own situation, I think it's totally time for some awesome but useless. Sometimes just playing with my kid is the best thing to do when I'm moving toward being overworked.
- slig 15y agoWell, you seem to have time to HN.