Part of my structure for productivity and self-honesty is to not think of myself (or describe myself to others) as an entrepreneur, founder, CEO, inventor, etc.
My logic is that these words don't mean anything when you use them to describe yourself. Someone could register an LLC and in an instant, technically become the CEO of a business structure, but this means absolutely nothing when there isn't a product, there are no customers, there are no sales and (at best) there's barely an idea.
So, my policy is to (instead of defining myself based on a superficial job title) think of myself in terms of what I've what I've accomplished (especially what I've accomplished very recently). This keeps me honest and helps me avoid false-confidence. Calling myself a CEO (especially to others) just feels silly (and a ridiculous attempt at a personal ego boost) when I have an unfinished product, my only employees are freelancers who do only one project at a time intermittently, there are no customers yet and the company website isn't even up. It's an action-fake.
However, in the last few weeks, I've been transitioning into a lifestyle of working full-time on my product. I quit my job two months ago, took six weeks to visit friends and family in North America for first time since COVID, and then relocated to southeast Asia two weeks ago with enough savings for about 6-12 months of living expenses and no plan B, aside from going job hunting if my product isn't finished and selling in 4-10 months and I start running out of money.
Taking this leap of faith has made me more motivated (and productive on daily basis) than ever before in my life, but at the same time (and for the same reasons), it's also left me experiencing a lot of unhealthy pressure, the weight of which has led to me feeling negative emotions on a lot of work days. There's been no negative thoughts about myself or fears of failure, but I have been experiencing distracting levels of anxiety from the pressure.
I've been experiencing a consistent feeling that I need to be producing, producing, producing or my product will never be finished. This isn't an inaccurate feeling at all. If I don't create a long list of certain things that are needed for my MVP to be finished, there won't be an MVP to sell. On the other hand, these feelings haven't been beneficial in boosting my level of productivity and my level of motivation is already quite high. So, it's just an unhelpful distraction.
It's been a pretty regular occurence over the last week and a half to reach a point in my work where I need to make a graphic design decision about the look and function of my product. The product is a set of HR training materials designed to be downloaded, printed and cut-out (as necessary) by HR training providers, which means that certain features need to exist to make this easy to do and also ensure that it's easy to organize and sort the many components once they are printed and cut out for use. Ideally, the visual appearance of these features will also look good enough that the product has credibility when potential customers look at samples.
Now, it would always be possibly to change my mind later about design decisions and make changes, but that would create a lot of extra work for me, so it's highly preferable to make decisions now that I'll be happy with later.
So, I've been going through a process this week where some design decisions need to be made before I continue working on the actual individual product components and facing these decisions has been making me feel bad. I took some time to sort through the feelings I was having and I had a bit of a breakthrough in my thinking about productivity and my role.
I realized that I actually have two roles right now.
For most of the work that needs to be done, I am an individual contributor. I do the individual actions of product development that are necessary to create the product that I have created in my mind. When I'm doing these tasks, I know what needs to be done, no difficult decisions need to be made and it's just a matter of doing one task after another as efficiently as possible and getting as many of those task finished a day as reasonably possible.
But I'm also the head of product, because I'm also responsible for making all major design decisions. There is almost never a roadmap or an obvious and logical choice when it comes to major design decisions and I don't have a boss to go to who can make any decisions for me -- so from the perspective of company roles, I am really the CEO and not just the head of product when it comes to making chose major design decisions.
What I've been realizing is that when making design decisions where no "correct" decision, I'm not functioning in an individual contributor role.
Unlike the work that an individual contributor does, the task of making a design decision isn't a clearly defined individual action that needs to be repeated again and again. Making the decision won't necessarily be easier by spending more time focusing on the task of making that decision. In fact, focusing on it too much usually makes it harder. Sometimes the best way to reach a decision that I'm happy with is to not think about it too much at a time and instead just go for a swim, read some news, play a computer game, watch an unrelated Youtube video before coming back to look at it again -- or even accept that my brain is too muddled to make the decision today and just quit for the day and come back to the decision first thing the next day after 8 hours of sleep and with fresh eyes.
The realization I had yesterday is that doing all of the things that I mentioned in the previous sentence ARE working when I'm in the CEO role making a CEO level decision with long term consequences.
I've been setting weekly goals (click the link to see my thread on that if interested) for productivity, but I realized yesterday that those goals are only suitable for someone in an individual contributor role. And while for the majority of my working hours each week, I am functioning in an individual contributor role (which is important and necessary for progress, because I am the only full-time employee), I realized that when I encounter a product decision that needs to be made by the CEO, I need to stop defining progress and productivity based on my individual contributor goals and just let myself be the CEO until the decision is made.
I also realized that a lot of the pressure that I've been experiencing has been a result of focusing on my individual contributor goals even when I am working on a CEO task and that I need to stop doing that. That pressure is making it harder for me to do the CEO job eficiently when that's the role I need to be working in for a period of time (until a key decision on an important product decision can be firmly made and I can comfortable shift back into my individual contributor role knowing that I don't need to worry that all the work I'm doing will need to be re-edited later if I change my mind).
So, I've decided to start calling myself the CEO when it's time to be in the CEO role. I'm going to tell myself, "You're the CEO. Your job right now is to be clear minded and relaxed so that you're able to make a important decisions effectively. This decision has significant consequences on the product, so give yourself permission to take the necessary time to process and to think and don't move forward until you've been able to make a decision that you're comfortable with and will be happy with when you shift back into the role of individual contributor, so that you're not distracted by the decision when you're back in that role."
Hope this post is helpful to someone else out there.
My logic is that these words don't mean anything when you use them to describe yourself. Someone could register an LLC and in an instant, technically become the CEO of a business structure, but this means absolutely nothing when there isn't a product, there are no customers, there are no sales and (at best) there's barely an idea.
So, my policy is to (instead of defining myself based on a superficial job title) think of myself in terms of what I've what I've accomplished (especially what I've accomplished very recently). This keeps me honest and helps me avoid false-confidence. Calling myself a CEO (especially to others) just feels silly (and a ridiculous attempt at a personal ego boost) when I have an unfinished product, my only employees are freelancers who do only one project at a time intermittently, there are no customers yet and the company website isn't even up. It's an action-fake.
However, in the last few weeks, I've been transitioning into a lifestyle of working full-time on my product. I quit my job two months ago, took six weeks to visit friends and family in North America for first time since COVID, and then relocated to southeast Asia two weeks ago with enough savings for about 6-12 months of living expenses and no plan B, aside from going job hunting if my product isn't finished and selling in 4-10 months and I start running out of money.
Taking this leap of faith has made me more motivated (and productive on daily basis) than ever before in my life, but at the same time (and for the same reasons), it's also left me experiencing a lot of unhealthy pressure, the weight of which has led to me feeling negative emotions on a lot of work days. There's been no negative thoughts about myself or fears of failure, but I have been experiencing distracting levels of anxiety from the pressure.
I've been experiencing a consistent feeling that I need to be producing, producing, producing or my product will never be finished. This isn't an inaccurate feeling at all. If I don't create a long list of certain things that are needed for my MVP to be finished, there won't be an MVP to sell. On the other hand, these feelings haven't been beneficial in boosting my level of productivity and my level of motivation is already quite high. So, it's just an unhelpful distraction.
It's been a pretty regular occurence over the last week and a half to reach a point in my work where I need to make a graphic design decision about the look and function of my product. The product is a set of HR training materials designed to be downloaded, printed and cut-out (as necessary) by HR training providers, which means that certain features need to exist to make this easy to do and also ensure that it's easy to organize and sort the many components once they are printed and cut out for use. Ideally, the visual appearance of these features will also look good enough that the product has credibility when potential customers look at samples.
Now, it would always be possibly to change my mind later about design decisions and make changes, but that would create a lot of extra work for me, so it's highly preferable to make decisions now that I'll be happy with later.
So, I've been going through a process this week where some design decisions need to be made before I continue working on the actual individual product components and facing these decisions has been making me feel bad. I took some time to sort through the feelings I was having and I had a bit of a breakthrough in my thinking about productivity and my role.
I realized that I actually have two roles right now.
For most of the work that needs to be done, I am an individual contributor. I do the individual actions of product development that are necessary to create the product that I have created in my mind. When I'm doing these tasks, I know what needs to be done, no difficult decisions need to be made and it's just a matter of doing one task after another as efficiently as possible and getting as many of those task finished a day as reasonably possible.
But I'm also the head of product, because I'm also responsible for making all major design decisions. There is almost never a roadmap or an obvious and logical choice when it comes to major design decisions and I don't have a boss to go to who can make any decisions for me -- so from the perspective of company roles, I am really the CEO and not just the head of product when it comes to making chose major design decisions.
What I've been realizing is that when making design decisions where no "correct" decision, I'm not functioning in an individual contributor role.
Unlike the work that an individual contributor does, the task of making a design decision isn't a clearly defined individual action that needs to be repeated again and again. Making the decision won't necessarily be easier by spending more time focusing on the task of making that decision. In fact, focusing on it too much usually makes it harder. Sometimes the best way to reach a decision that I'm happy with is to not think about it too much at a time and instead just go for a swim, read some news, play a computer game, watch an unrelated Youtube video before coming back to look at it again -- or even accept that my brain is too muddled to make the decision today and just quit for the day and come back to the decision first thing the next day after 8 hours of sleep and with fresh eyes.
The realization I had yesterday is that doing all of the things that I mentioned in the previous sentence ARE working when I'm in the CEO role making a CEO level decision with long term consequences.
I've been setting weekly goals (click the link to see my thread on that if interested) for productivity, but I realized yesterday that those goals are only suitable for someone in an individual contributor role. And while for the majority of my working hours each week, I am functioning in an individual contributor role (which is important and necessary for progress, because I am the only full-time employee), I realized that when I encounter a product decision that needs to be made by the CEO, I need to stop defining progress and productivity based on my individual contributor goals and just let myself be the CEO until the decision is made.
I also realized that a lot of the pressure that I've been experiencing has been a result of focusing on my individual contributor goals even when I am working on a CEO task and that I need to stop doing that. That pressure is making it harder for me to do the CEO job eficiently when that's the role I need to be working in for a period of time (until a key decision on an important product decision can be firmly made and I can comfortable shift back into my individual contributor role knowing that I don't need to worry that all the work I'm doing will need to be re-edited later if I change my mind).
So, I've decided to start calling myself the CEO when it's time to be in the CEO role. I'm going to tell myself, "You're the CEO. Your job right now is to be clear minded and relaxed so that you're able to make a important decisions effectively. This decision has significant consequences on the product, so give yourself permission to take the necessary time to process and to think and don't move forward until you've been able to make a decision that you're comfortable with and will be happy with when you shift back into the role of individual contributor, so that you're not distracted by the decision when you're back in that role."
Hope this post is helpful to someone else out there.
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