I was 20 when I worked at my first startup during my sophomore year. It was 1999 and I felt lucky to be working with a group of people my age (and younger) at a hot tech startup. I regularly slept on the floor of my office to be there more in case something needed attention; some people upped the ante and bought futons; most of the time we spent around the office in whatever clothes happened to be there. I once worked a 46 hour stretch to solve a blocking problem for the team, and that was only just above average. It was a valuable experience that taught me a lot about myself and what I was capable of.
Fast forward 13 years and now I'm in my early 30's, a veteran of several startups in the Bay Area (including one of my own), in serious relationship, and have a cat (living the dream). I have a great group of friends and am often the pivot for bringing everyone together. The idea of sleeping on my office floor doesn't have that same charm as it did in my early 20's. My girlfriend works market hours (EST), which means she's out of the house by 5:00 every morning and asleep by 9:30 pm. I still love working with small teams, mostly at startups, still spend nights researching technology and software development or trying to understand business markets and how to spot opportunities at the intersection of technology and un-met demand.
I think many of us who work in technology eventually start to feel the pull of conflicting responsibilities. As we get older we build our network of friends, commit to more serious relationships, and take on more and more responsibilities in our community. We start to think about our health, deeper motivations, evaluating our legacy, looking forward to the future, and wondering what larger impact we can make. How do we begin to balance all of these parts of our lives to remain productive and fulfill all of these other commitments we've made to others?
People talk a lot about "hacking" our personal lives these days, so I penciled in a few hours by myself and sat down to think about productivity, schedules, and time management. I spent a lot of time making notes not just on my own schedule, but also a cross section of people I regularly interact with; single, married, with / without children, employed / unemployed, etc. I came up with a list of all the things that I know about how they manage their personal and professional lives and fed it back through the lens of my own. I identified the times when I'm most productive (mornings) when I'm the least (afternoon, post lunch), and when I need time to socialize and recharge (evenings). I also factor in my alone time, which for me often means more work (by choice). What I came up with is my schedule for sanity, listed below.
- 8:00am - 9:00am: Coffee, breakfast, reading blogs/articles/email, starting to explore work that needs to get done for the day
- 9:00am - 12:00pm: At the office, circling up with the team, starting to get work done for the day
- 12:00pm - 1:00pm: To the gym for a workout. My afternoons are when I slump the most, and this almost guarantees short-circuiting that unproductive block
- 1:00pm - 6:00pm: Afternoon work, sometimes meetings, sometimes going heads down, sometimes fleeing the office
- 6:00pm - 9:30pm: Recharging time. This can mean dinner with the friends, going climbing, finding something fun going on in the city, or just being domestic. I try to put aside all thoughts of work here to really get the most out of it and be ready for my time later on
- 9:30pm - 10:00pm: Futzing around, maybe just reading the internet, maybe playing a game, etc.
- 10:00pm - 1:00am: Back to work. Here's where I'm starting to dig deep into bigger problems. I'm often at the whiteboard in my home office during the time sketching ideas, or turning those into something tangible. Last night, for instance, I spent fixing someone else's library so I could make progress on a project that needed it.
- 1:00am - 7:00am: Sleep time. Sometimes I go to bed earlier depending on my mood and energy levels, but this is a good average
BTW, this isn't a prescriptive formula, it's just what works for me. I want it to be a call for you to think deeply about how you can are really productive and to spend some time re-evaluating an almost 200-year old idea of labor.
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