Birthday Note
On this day five years ago, I turned 18. The web development company a friend and I were working on was growing rapidly. Also, it was a particularly memorable day as I made $1,000 in the stock market. In fact, my one year plan was to become a millionaire.
Looking back, my predictions were completely wrong. On one hand, I did not foresee a bubble bursting and losing most of our web development clients, but on another hand, I did not foresee writing a book or meeting a girl friend that I want to spend the rest of my life with.
Perhaps the biggest change has been the majority of my thoughts switching from possibility to probability. While, I think this has been good as I've been more effective, the idea of falling into conformity scares me. I sense that I'm at one of the very real turning points in life, as I believe all college students are, and I don't want to simply go from youthful idealism to adult realism.
The successful people who I've studied who've achieved success in happiness, making a difference, or making money all seem to be a little bit crazy. They seem to live in a fantasy world that through intelligent persistence, they make into a reality for others. This is the world I would like to inhabit for the rest of my life. The key is finding the balance between being a "crazy" person and a "normal" person, and just being an "effective" one.
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November 02, 2004
Toward a New Definition of Time Management
One reason entrepreneurship is special to me is that it provides a unique outlet for me to lose myself in time. Day after day, month after month for the last six years I've been able to work on my business for as long as I want and be happy. I thought this was because of the actual content of what I was doing.
However, I'm beginning to realize that the structure of how we manage our time has a very large impact on our enjoyment of it. For example, I started a new part-time position last Monday as a director/consultant for the Bank of America Youth Entrepreneurship Program in New York City. While I love this position and enjoyed myself, being paid hourly and working out of an office (while I start), resulted in me looking at the clock more often than I would have liked. The same sometimes happens to me in classess that I enjoy. However, if I'm doing something menial, but it's for my business, and I can do it from my apartment at 2am in my boxers, I may love it. Below are some things that seem to affect how one looks at one's time:
- When it comes to how you spend your time, do you have control over where, what, when, how, and who?
- Does the task lead to a result that is not only important to you, but the most important? That is not only relevant and applicable, but the most relevant and applicable?
- If you are getting paid, are you getting paid an hourly wage? a salary? based on results? Do you have ownership in the company you're working for?
- Does it feel good to do the activity?
- Who judges the results of your activities? a boss? the markets? yourself?
- Are you good at what you're doing? Are you making progress?
I know that this list is incomplete, but I still hold that the structure of how we manage our time is very crucial and very under-rated.
