I've been leading a small, bootstrapped startup for the last four years. The team is a lot smaller these days than we were before. But we're not dead yet and I

I've been leading a small, bootstrapped startup for the last four years. The team is a lot smaller these days than we were before. But we're not dead yet and I still enjoy working on our product. Things are actually looking pretty good at this point and we have some perspective on revenue growth and even team growth. Being bootstrapped means we can set our own pace. The thing with fire fighting is that you 1) need to recognize that you are doing it. 2) put a stop to it. Firefighting simply doesn't work. You have a 100 fires to put out and you put out 1 or 2. The house will still burn down. And you will be too stressed to do a good job at what little you are still actually doing. So you'll cause a few more fires in the process. Firefighting leads to more fire fighting. Also the constant context switching actually means you are less productive. In terms of people management (including yourself), fire fighting is not sustainable for very long. It just makes people miserable, stresses them out, and eventually they leave, get burned out, etc. And that includes yourself. You have a breaking point and you want to stay on the right side of it. In my case, if I step out the company dies. It's that simple. So, I use my weekends to recover, not to work my ass off. Coming in well rested on Monday is more important than getting whatever done on a Sunday. So, take the tough decisions you need to make (who gets to stay, which things to cut, etc.) and then stabilize at whatever level is sustainable. De-prioritize the things that won't get done anyway. Stop pretending that you are even doing them. Ruthlessly prioritize what needs doing and filter that list by do-ability and then by available resources and then by short term priority. Smaller teams mean things actually get easier. Less need for meetings, less conflicts, etc. I'd run this thing differently if I had a ten person team. But I just don't. So a lot of management is just me freeing up time so I can actually do things myself.