Distractions

I was never a great student. The problem was I never studied. It was not that I refused to do the work, I simply got bored. Even when I opened up my books, ten minutes later I would be doing anything else other than reviewing my schoolwork.

While studying was not my thing, I did find a job that lined up with how I operated. It was commodities trading. Being on the floor energized me and got my mind locked in. The ringing phone banks, streams of financial data and news flowing over TV screens, and shouting of orders across open pitswas like pure adrenaline.

Later, I saw the bigger opportunity in software engineering and building startups. I did a career turnaround, joined a small tech firm in downtown NYC, and started my new life as a software developer. I was excited to dive into coding!

Then I found myself doing anything else other than writing code. I was given a project with little oversight to build an app for the sales team. I thought sales was lame and writing code for hours on end beyond boring. After two months, I was directionless and made zero progress in my goal of being a real developer.

Then my boss asked to see a demo. I cobbled together bits and pieces of barely working code together in an attempt to show some effort. He was not impressed and he gave me an ultimatum: build a working demo in four weeks or I was fired.

Lighting a fire under my ass solved the boredom problem. I worked like a maniac and didn’t slept for that entire month. All that consumed me day and night was the desire to build a working product. I forgot to eat most days, a definitely could have used a shower, and family and friends were an afterthought.

I pulled out a win when I showed my boss the new demo. Lots of stuff still did not work, the app was buggy as hell, and the user experience was awful I had created a real production application though that did enough to demonstrate I could do the work. I had finally managed to become a legitimate developer.

I have learned a lot about myself and how I work over the years. I have a strong work ethic and can push through almost anything. I can pull multiple all-nighters when the pressure is on to ship something or solve a critical problem. I can go all-in for days on one project, much like what I did recently to get the second edition of my book out in five weeks.

Then there are days when I get nothing done. Absolutely zero productive work is accomplished. This mostly happens when all of my travel finally catches up with me. I try to start, but cannot pull it together to give my attention to the work piling up.

I use to think there was something wrong with me. Then I read a post called “Fire and Motion” on the Joel on Software. I have read plenty of Joel’s posts, but this one hit differently. Instead of thinking that I was a lazy sack of shit, I realized a lot of successful people are like me. They work hard, but there are plenty of times when they just stare out a window doing nothing.

This poses a challenge as a startup founder. You have limited time before you run out of money, either your own or that of your investors. You absolutely need to make progress and build traction because you are in survival mode. If you are solo founder, this is even more important as you have no one else to rely on when you are stuck or feeling lethargic.

You would think the pressure of not having a regular paycheck would be enough of a fire under one’s ass. The fear and stress can sometimes have the opposite effect. Instead of pushing through, you get overwhelmed. It is like in the movies where an actors is facing an oncoming car or train and freezes. They know death is imminent, their mind is screaming to move, but the body is stuck in place.

You will experience unproductive days as a founder. You will hate yourself for wasting precious time. You will promise to be more focused going forward, only to lapse and beat yourself up for being undisciplined. Then the cycle will repeat.

It is time to stop the madness! You are not a terrible founder for not being some productivity junkie and crushing your work 24x7. There are no rewards for pulling consecutive all night coding sessions. It is time to stop hating yourself and realizing that not every second of every day can be or even should be productive.

At the same time, you probably could be more intentional about being focused and efficient in your work. Ideally, you want to align the hours you work to when you are in your flow state. You can think of flow state as a period of time when you are immersed and focused to the point that your work seem effortless.

The challenge is in getting into and keeping your flow state. In a world overflowing with distractions, every device, colleague and open office environment is an enemy waiting to kill your productivity. The slightest interruption can easily wreck your well-crafted plans for the day. An article in the Harvard Business Review highlighted a study that found there was an average of 87 interruptions per day (22 external interruptions and 65 self-triggered) which had huge impact to productivity:

To help you achieve flow state, here are 10 things I have started to implement to trigger my flow state. Some of these are still a work in progress, but it seems to be sticking. Feel free to pick and choose the tips that work for you!

1. Breakdown big projects – If the task at hand is too big and complex, I break it up into smaller chunks of work that are more manageable to accomplish. Just keep creating smaller chunks till you can better scope your effort.

2. Define one must thing to do today  – Tasks and to-do lists can feel soul crushing. Instead, focus on just the one, most critical thing to finish that day. Once complete, you get that small dopamine hit that propels you along.

3. Kill phone notifications – My phone is permanently on silent mode. I also started the habit of putting my phone in my bag so I am not tempted to reach for it as I work.

4. Cut out the social media – I have reduced my addiction by deleting accounts and removing apps. I still use LinkedIn, but removed most notifications and switched the feed to “most recent” instead of “recommended”, so it is less appealing.

5. Time block critical work – I aim to get three 90-minute sessions per day with zero calls, meetings, and  interruptions. In between, I can catch up on lower priority tasks and messages.

6. Create a work ritual – My ritual is making a pot of tea in the morning. You can set yours using music, cleaning your desk, exercise, or anything else that puts your mind at ease.

7. Give yourself “5-minutes” – Sometimes just getting started on a task can be the biggest hurdle. Commit to working on the task for 5 minutes, and often you can get yourself motivated to continue.

8. Work during peak energy zone – My best work happens early in the morning. Your time zone might be mid-day or late at night. Whenever it is, do your best to arrange your deep work for those times.

9. Get good noise cancelling headphones – I work in a lot of cafes, so the noise can be a huge distraction. My Bose QuietComfort 35 headphones have been awesome for eliminating noise, especially when listening to whay Spotify thinks is my favorite song, “White Noise 3 Hours Long”.

10. Reduce the social agenda – This is something I still need to improve on, but it is hard to focus if your days (and nights) are filled with activities not related to your startup. That includes travel, attending events, grabbing coffee with friends, sports clubs, etc. You do not have to eliminate all things, just the more frivolous stuff.

Lastly, one of the most fundamental principles of achieving flow work is to enjoy what you are doing. I procrastinate when I have work that I absolutely do not love. Sometimes I still have to get it done, but often it is better handled by a contractor. That is fine. The danger zone is when you stop loving the most critical work required of your startup. If you are reaching that stage, then you may want to do some deep reflection on what you are seeking in your life and work.

What are your tips for helping you avoid procrastination and find your flow? I would like to share the best suggestions in the next newsletter!

Mark Birch

After a whirlwind tour of Northeast Europe, I am now back in Taipei working away on my startup and trying my best to avoid distractions. I did make some time this week to attend the last GenieFriends dinner focused on bringing a diverse group together to build global connections.

I also had the honor of participating as a mentor to prepare a group of 31 top Taiwanese startups for VivaTech in Paris next month. VivaTech is one of the largest tech conferences in the world, bringing together over 165,000 tech firms, startups, corporates, government agencies & investors. France and Europe are also quite different culturally, so National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) worked with Mosaic Venture Lab to host a workshop to help Taiwanese startup adapt and adjust to European business culture. I led the Marketing track and had the great pleasure to work with my fellow mentors Nai-Hsin Chen and Emilia Wu to review the startups’ marketing materials.

Thanks to Volker Heistermann, Johnny Yu, and Mosaic Venture Lab for the kind invitation to join this program as a mentor, the excellent keynote on French and Taiwanese culture by François Cotier of Business France, all the excellent mentors that shared their time and expertise to assist the startups, and to Hsing-Fei Wu, Senior Executive Officer of the NSTC, for his continued efforts to elevate Taiwanese startups onto the global stage.