by Tim on February 1, 2012
Well, I'm going to try doing this from now on. At 2PM every Friday I'm no longer allowed to do any coding. I take the weekends off so if I break something then chances are I won't realize it till Monday.
So what should I do in the hours after 2PM? Blog posts!
I figure that's the best way to keep the content coming, without breaking anything. It's also a good time for me to brainstorm and write on my whiteboard things I want to do next week, so Monday morning I've got a fresh set of ideas.
This is one of the keys to business. Finding your weaknesses and turning them into strengths! I'm usually focused on work work work so if I didn't force myself to stop I'd not have the time to brainstorm the next big thing.
Of course, as I write this post on a Friday at 2:24PM Larry decides to drop two bugs on me expecting me to fix them without coding...
by Tim on January 4, 2012
You know how it goes. You spill the beans and someone tries to get the idea done before you with half the effort. You keep going thinking yours will be better and everyone will love you. You release it, and everyone calls you a copycat and leaves you in the dust.
At least that's my fear. So I don't like to spill the beans. But it's hard when you get excited about something you're working on. I hope you are excited about something you are working on. It really makes it easier to get to work every day and makes the time fly.
The biggest problem I see is most of the exciting things have risk. They might not work. So do you stick with what you know produces, and forget about this grand idea? Or do you go all in and either strike gold or bite the dust?
I say neither. Take the Google approach. I think the number is 10%. They give their employees 10% of their work hours to devote to whatever they want. That way they still work on what they know needs to get done and makes income. But their entire company is also excited about that 10% where they have basically infinite resources to do something really cool.
Now I'm not Google, you're not Google, but we can apply it to our lives. Pick a % and try to give yourself that time every day to do something you love. Maybe it doesn't even have to do with income. Maybe it's cooking food for your family because you love to cook.
Either way, give yourself that time without feeling guilty. You'll find yourself being more productive in the other 90% of the time because you look forward to that 10%. And then if you do have a big idea it might take 20 times as long to do it, but if it strikes gold you can make it your 90%!! How cool would that be!
