Like an offensive line that makes room for the star player to act, the right timezone frees you to make the play.

This past week I worked out of Paris (to attend and speak at Le Web).  I was reminded how incredibly easy it was to get ahead when everyone in the States was asleep.  But to keep my team on task and address some big opportunities, I also found myself Skyping and emailing from 1-3am.  It was the best and it was the worst.

A few years ago I worked out of Barcelona.  This past summer I worked out of Buenos Aires.  A big part of why I take these trips is that they’re simply better timezones for me.  And I mean it when I say that the only thing I truly dislike about San Francisco is Pacific Standard Time.

Timezones play a very important role in my ability to get things done.  Like a long flight without internet, they keep interruptions at bay.  But timezones also mean something psychologically—when I accomplish things before others are even online, it feels different.  A good timezone is an opportunity to not only get ahead but to feel ahead.  That’s powerful.

Try as I might to find another pattern, my routine has been unchanged for several years.  I get the most accomplished in the mornings, when I prefer to keep to myself.  I prefer to take meetings or calls in the afternoons.  And, no matter what advanced calendaring or ‘get up early’ techniques I’ve tried, nothing allows me to maintain this rhythm quite so well as a good timezone.

Essentially, I like to be slightly ahead of those I’m working with—ideally 3-6 hours.  In Buenos Aires I’m now 2 hours ahead of my east coast folks and 5 hours ahead of SF.  In Barcelona or Paris I was 6 hours ahead of the east coast (where I used to live), which was manageable…but the 9 hour difference from SF (where I now live) is not manageable.  So that means Europe is generally off my radar now, at least for long trips.

Of course, all of this assumes that when traveling there’s still an opportunity to get into a rhythm and complete your work.  Being far away from home can be challenging, but these days so long as you can find a good office, coworking space, or even coffeehouse, you should be able to get things done.  I try to take month-long trips since it’s enough time both to build a routine and qualify for monthly rates on apartments and offices.

I’ve been behind on writing to my blog, but now that I’m in Buenos Aires, it’s easier to find that time, as I’m probably writing this before you’re even awake.  I’m free from interruptions, and I must say that it’s nice to have long days in the summer sun.

Now it’s your turn to get away and get things done.  Who says they don’t go together?

But there are two common problems that will sabotage any distributed team’s progress.  We fight them every day at AwayFind, and here’s what we’ve learned.

A big part of remote (er, any) work is a need to communicate frequently, or even over-communicate.  But in a distributed team, there are two communication challenges that lead to big problems.

First, let’s make some assumptions:

• Others on your team have more experience with some of the things you have to do
• The work you’re completing now will change before it’s presented to customers

These are true in any company with a handful of people.  And depending on the degree to which you address these assumptions through communication and feedback, your team can sometimes suffer from:

• Over-perseverance – fighting through every new challenge completely on one’s own
• Over-polish – perfecting what one’s working on before offering it up for feedback

I love having a team that works hard and gets stuff done, so perseverance and polish are generally great traits…but when they lead to slow work and re-work, that’s both frustrating and dangerous.

And on remote teams, these two traits are even more prevalent.  First off, people who are attracted to remote work are often independent people who enjoy working through their own challenges.  But more importantly, in remote work there are far fewer casual check-ins:

• We’re less likely to ask for help form our colleagues when we don’t run into them
• We’re less likely to see a project before it’s finished when it’s not right in front of us

Think about it—when you’re working in the same room you see what they’re working on and hear their frustration.  We’re quick to help one another out and to address problems at earlier stages.

Now this isn’t merely an argument against distributed teams (I’ve long been a fan), rather it’s a warning to prevent these problems from occurring in your distributed team.  As a remote worker, you need to:

• Find a way to share your work well before it’s completed…and be open to reviewing others’ work while its unfinished
• Ask for help from your colleagues when you’re working with a new tool or technology…and regularly check in with others on your team to understand their skills and where you might be able to help

There is not a month that goes by where I don’t learn of someone who struggled with a project I could’ve helped with… or a feature that could’ve been corrected before it got to its present level of polish.  These things can set us back DAYS or WEEKS, and they kill me because they’re avoidable.  Fight back NOW.

These problems no doubt exist in every company…but in remote teams they’re even more prevalent and pervasive.  And if you want to work with people in different offices, you need to proactively combat these issues and architect a culture that supports early feedback and casual sharing of ideas.

While these aren’t the only challenges in distributed teams, these may be the biggest.  If you focus on them head on, perhaps you can reap the rest of the benefits…and join me on my next trip to Buenos Aires.

It’s no secret our greatest asset is time and our greatest predictor of success how we spend it, yet most of us have grown into our roles and task lists without giving it much thought.

Where do we kick ass…and where do we struggle?  Where do we have leverage..and where are we a replaceable worker bee?

At a dinner the other night, we got on the topic of "what are you best at?"  An interesting question perhaps, but it led to a couple better, more specific ones:

• In what area are you uniquely skilled, relative to others?
• Of your unique skills, which can you leverage the most for impact?

Take two minutes to consider your answers.

Though there’s scarcely one right answer, it’s likely that your responses will not be how you spend most (or even much) of your time.

I believe my answer is my ability to offer feedback and communicate advice in a way that’s useful and specific.  With my team that comes in the form of product vision, specifications, and feedback.  With the outside world it comes in the form of speaking and writing.

And as I look back on the past decade, my only regret is that I haven’t written more, created more, and shared more.  Like many of you reading this, as my team and responsibilities have grown, I’ve dealt more with unplanned situations, rather than setting my own agenda.  But, as I wrote a few months back, that’s not the way to make a difference.

How about you — are you spending most of your day in an area where you kick ass and leverage your time?  Any advice, for you or for me, for how to get back on track?

But there is a reliable process for building the right habits.  In The 4-Hour Body, Tim Ferriss pulls from lifehacking and game mechanics to break it down.

The 4-Hour Body may seem like hype, but at its core it’s a disciplined approach to physical transformation.  Whether or not you take Tim’s specific advice on weight loss/karmic sex/whatever, his approach is a guide toward coaxing yourself into new behaviors.

Aristotle talks a lot about habit, but was rarely prescriptive in his advice around it.  Rather, he discussed in detail about making habits of things and how that will change who you are—the whole “we are what we repeatedly do” bit you hear quoted all the time.  The 4-Hour Body goes into detail on how to get there.

The meat of the discussion begins on page 58, in “From Photos to Fear.”  It starts with a story of someone who lost 40 pounds and went from running barely a mile to several half-marathons.  I usually take these with a grain of salt, but it happens to be a story of a mutual friend, and the story was accurate.

Then the book digs into the “four principles of failure-proofing” your transformation:

1. Make it conscious.
2. Make it a game.
3. Make it competitive.
4. Make it small and temporary.

You’ve probably heard of “lifehacking.”  Jon Evans credits Tim Ferriss with “promulgating the [lifehacker] ethos to the general population.”  And though I’ve written for Lifehacker.com and spoke many-a-time on personal productivity, changing my behavior and that of those around me has always been murky business.  “Okay, great, that’s what I should be doing…but I’m going to go back to how I was before.”

And that’s where Tim steps in.  He’s taking the measurement ideas that are core to lifehacking and lean startups and throwing in a bit of gamification.  And it works.

A Brief Summary of the Points

Make it conscious: establish a baseline for where you are, and find a way to remind yourself of it regularly.  When it comes to weight, that means taking a “before” photo and placing it somewhere you’re going to see regularly.

Make it a game: it’s less about what you measure, and more that you measure at all.  Measuring is what makes you aware of what change is taking place.  Tim recommends specifically that you track something at least five times to get in the habit of being aware of it.  And that game bit is that you give yourself bite-sized goals around it—i.e., track your miles and then aim for 25 in a week, etc.  (Say what you want about this, but when I run with my Nike Plus, my times are faster and distances greater. – see chart to the right)

Make it competitive: rely on peer pressure, involve other people through websites like DailyBurn, a newsletter to a group of friends, or a regularly scheduled call…preferably where you’re working toward the same thing.  (There’s a bit more to this in the book)

Make it small and temporary: don’t set an ambitious short term goal, but start with one part of it.  Maybe it’s changing your breakfast.  Maybe it’s writing for 15 minutes one day per week.  But it’s definitely not trying to take on the whole kahuna at once.

So What About the Rest of the Book…

The 4-Hour Body brings together a lot of different information that are worthwhile to understand.  Some complain parts of it are variations on popular science in various fields, but I don’t think most people know enough about those fields or topics.

For instance, I’m familiar with today’s research with carbs and newer theories around long-distance running… but I was woken up on how much bodyfat percentage plays into appearance, things that only a serious weight-lifter would understand as fundamentally as Tim lays out.

The thing is, Tim pulls information from a lot of sources—some popular, some unfamiliar.  And he brings them together in a fun way while adding a prescription for taking advantage of them.

In 2007, The 4-Hour Workweek changed my perspective on balance and making a living.  I think The 4-Hour Body (along with Born to Run and Good Calories, Bad Calories) will play a big role in my health and energy-level in 2011.

I hope you’ll use pieces of Tim’s formula above and do believe the book is a worthwhile read.

But these do not necessarily go hand-in-hand—they often make for a risky and stressful formula.  If you want freedom, impact, or authority, let’s talk about some paths to these beyond the “go launch a business” suggestion we hear all too often.

What Part of Entrepreneurship Excites You Most?

Before you go on, consider first what’s most important to you: freedom of time/location, making an impact, or running and growing a business?  These are interrelated and far from mutually exclusive, but most of us want one more than the others.  If it helps, you can place “the thrill of…” before any of these as that may help you to see it clearly—“the thrill of independence,” “the thrill of changing the world,” or the “thrill of building a business.”  Which do you seek most?

The Danger In Going All Out

Nevermind that 90% of businesses don’t make it five years and 50% don’t make it past year one (SBA statistics).  I want to talk more about lifestyle here:

If you want to bake bread, work at a bakery.  If you want to sweep the floor, start a bakery.  In other words, if you want to practice a craft then often times that gets put on the backburner for all the other minutiae that’s involved in running a business.  Maybe you won’t have to sweep the floor, but you will have to manage projects, keep track of the finances, help with workplace conflicts, etc.  (I believe this metaphor was in Michael Gerber’s E-Myth, a great book on this topic)

If you want cash and freedom, don’t build a startup. Don’t hire a dozen employees. Don’t start borrowing a bunch of money to invest in your idea.  Being a consultant may be a good approach to banking some buck.  Selling an information product or becoming a reseller online may be a way to build recurring revenue.  (If you really want to know about how to find a market online and build recurring revenue, my good friend Clay just launched his freedom business school – and I can vouch for the program.)  The thing is, while it’s possible for there to be a (freedom) light at the end of the tunnel, most forms of building businesses take an insane amount of work to get you there.

Another Approach to Changing the World

I’m not trying to dissuade you from doing The Next Big Thing (TNBT), but I believe there are other ways to realize our dreams than by starting a business.  Here’s the gist of a recent conversation with a good friend:

Friend: I have this awesome way of [insert her special talent] that local communities really need to keep publishing alive and even thriving.

She really might have this talent—she’s been in the publishing industry forever.

Me: That’s awesome, but how is that going to scale?  How are you going to build all the other stuff needed before you can do that?

Friend: Well, I guess I’ll build a product and…

Me: So you’re going to build a platform for local news?

Friend: I’ll start with one city, like Craigslist. I’ll just have to find some people who understand the technology and I think I can figure out the business side of this as I’m studying that stuff and…

Me: Have you looked at the way Yahoo Local News and Topix.com and others are trying to do what you’re talking about?  Have you looked into all the geolocation services out there that have a hand in local?

Friend: No.

Me: I don’t want to turn you away from your idea, but what if you looked into whether there was a place for you at all these places that already have platforms?  So you could maybe kick ass doing the part you’re good at, the part you’re passionate about…rather than the grunt work and high risk part of trying to build (yet another) platform?  Or maybe you could build a plug-in for them that…

I’m not saying that this works for everyone.  But the thing is, we all get really excited about our ideas, but we don’t consider the market enough:

• What’s already out there?  This is not a 15 minute Google exercise.
• Do you want to compete with the existing companies in the space or could you possibly join one of them or offer a niche service to them?  (in which case you could immediately focus on the thing you’re good at?)

It’s somewhat naive to think we can easily land a job with authority at the incumbent or sell something to them.  But it is possible to effect change without starting from scratch or being at the top.

Just ask yourself, if impact is your goal is there a way to make the same impact without being a CEO of something that doesn’t presently exist?  Maybe you can have a greater chance of success with an existing group?

(and for all you 20-somethings who rushed to join not-for-profits at 25k per year as an office manager—this is not what I’m talking about—more on that later)

And as for Freedom…

Well, changing the world and finding extra time or money for oneself don’t always go hand in hand.  If you read The Four Hour Workweek, you’ll see that the types of businesses Ferriss advocates aren’t always in line with solving the world’s biggest problems.

But those aren’t for everyone—we all have loans to pay, mouths to feed, and ambitions outside of work.  Freedom businesses may be the best path to that—it’s not the traditional approach to entrepreneurship, but it is a valid one.  (Again, Clay’s program is one of many to learn more about that.)

The only point I want to leave you with on this is that the fastest way to freedom or reliable revenue is not to go out on your own trying to build something big.

So What?  And Tying It All Together

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about lessons-learned in business.  I get paid to offer business advice and I organize a group to help entrepreneurs succeed (come to our next event Oct 29th!).  But the first step is not to just start your business.  The first step is to figure out whether you want to make an impact, find more freedom, or just build a business.  Then the next step is to figure out what’s already out there.

Putting those two steps together you have all kinds of options for what type of career is for you and whether it makes sense to go it alone or to join something else that’s already off the ground.

(I went off on a little tangent earlier about the unrealistic not-for-profit change-the-world path, and that’s because just joining a company is not the best way to make an impact there and beyond.  The best way is to build rapport with the exact company you want to be involved with and use the tactics in Charlie Hoehn’s Recession Proof Grad free eBook to land a respected job where you get to make the impact you want to make.  Seriously grab that eBook.)

So don’t just build TNBT.  Do what’s right for you.

Flickr photo credit: futureshape

The following is a video of me from WordCamp Mid-Atlantic talking about both productivity at work and balance in life.  Though the presentation was initially geared toward blogging, there are 13 minutes I’ve highlighted that I hope you’ll enjoy.

Below the video I’ve listed out the timestamps to skip to, as well as some articles that cover the concepts in greater, actionable detail.  And below that, the slides.  Enjoy!

First off, I hate that I look like Steve Ballmer’s monkey dance at the beginning, but otherwise I was pretty happy with this (huge thank you to Joe Corbett of iStrategyLabs for filming this!).  Here are the hotlinks:

Blogging Tips: 4:45 – 24:20.  I talk about things like using visual text editors, applications like Texter and Q10, etc.  If you write a lot (even it’s not on a blog), there should be some useful tips in there.

The meat of the presentation about BALANCE starts around 24:40 / slide 17 and goes to about 37 minutes:

• Purge your mind: 24:40 / slide 17: how to make a big ass list
• Masturbatory statistics 25:20 /  slide 18-19
• 50:10 Time management 27:25 / slide 20
• Social media fame vs. real life 29:00 / slide 21: avoiding online popularity
• Unplugging 29:50 (and some talk about SF vs. Barcelona) / slide 23
• In the stream, how to deal with Twitter, etc. 31:15 / slide 22
• Batching email and a cone of silence 32:00 / slide 24: AwayFind
• Identifying your critical path 33:45
• Circadian Rhythms – scheduling around your energy 34:50 / slide 26
• When you’re done with work, go home 35:50 / slide 27

I hope you enjoyed the video : ).  If you have any tips on balance, feel free to share.

Flickr photo credit: SashaW

Tonight I delivered a presentation at Ignite Baltimore that addressed applying concepts in productivity to make for a happier life.

If you’re relatively new to this blog, this will be an overview of many of the concepts I hold dear.  If you’ve been here for a while this will serve as a refresher.  Either way, I’m very happy with the slides Keith (a co-worker at SET) helped to design for this—and I think you’ll enjoy looking through them.  Without further ado, you can learn why I used that photo of me and Suzanne above…

6 Minute Video from the Talk (the core starts at 1 min in)

Special thank you to Mike Brenner for filming this, and for the amazing organizers at Ignite Baltimore who put on such an energizing event: Mike Subelsky, David Adewumi, and Patti Chan.

Slides from the Talk

Further Elaboration and Notes

• A lot of people asked about Fonolo.  It lets you quickly choose a company you’d like to call (from their menu), select where in their phone menu you’d like to be, and then it calls your phone at exactly that point.  Yeah, it rocks
• The other two products mentioned were mine, AwayFind, and Mike Subelsky’s OtherInbox
• You might want some videos for how to turn off notifications on the social networks
• This was my first experience only checking email twice in a day
• Why you should turn off auto check on your BlackBerry or iPhone
• The value of extreme friendships for extreme growth
• How the company you keep can force you to be accountable
• My riff on loneliness and solitude was inspired by last week’s “The End of Solitude,” by William Deresiewicz in the The Chronicle Review [via @superfem].  I intend to write a post about this sooner or later
• And lastly, go home

–

Each time I link back to old articles it amazes me how much content is up here, and how much I’ve gotten to grow by bouncing ideas off and learning from you all.  Thank you for that.

PS I’m in NYC this weekend, so feel free to get in touch -– maybe we can get a cup of coffee.

If you’re like me, much of your information comes from the web, and you choose who to subscribe to.  And if you’ve been online for a while, there’s a good chance that those you paid attention to way back when are less relevant to who you are today.

As an advocate of information dieting, there came a point when I stopped subscribing to new blogs because my RSS reader was overfull.  I even hesitated to subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog for a while, which is kind of like visiting Switzerland and abstaining from chocolate.  A better solution was to periodically go through all my subscriptions and cut what I no longer needed.

Reviewing & Removing RSS Subscriptions

Over the last week I’ve been analyzing my blog subscriptions (and Twitter follows, but that’s a topic for another day) and re-evaluating, asking the following questions of both my existing feeds and potential new ones:

• Does the site contain a topic I want to learn about?  (which in some way translates to who I want to be)
• Is the author someone with whom I want to build a relationship with? (for either business or personal growth)
• Is this site testing my comfort zone or just offering an agreeable and only slightly different way of re-learning the same thing?  (it’s very easy to read stuff we’re familiar with and agree with, but we grow a great deal more from new ideas)
• Does the writing inspire and/or delight me? (I’ll save textbooks for the offline world, if I don’t really enjoy this author’s writing, I’ll never bother to read it)

These questions above all relate to my own hopes for growth and relationships: deepening my knowledge, connecting with great people, and surrounding myself with new ideas.  Well, that and the last point about enjoyment relates to whether or not I’ll actually read it.  And if I don’t read it then it’s wasting mental and physical space, like a To Do that remains forever unchecked.

I’m of course writing this to encourage you to do the same—to take the time to rethink your influences.  To not just keep subscribing or unsubscribing as time passes, but to examine and re-prioritize your whole reader.  If your reader is not up to date then you’re losing valuable time and many opportunities to learn (or laugh, or connect).

Expanding your RSS Subscriptions

If you’re not ready to cut, you can start by adding.  In addition to the questions above, here are a couple questions to get you started with new sites:

• Are there people you’ve met in the last year who you really want to keep in touch with? Assuming their blog fits some of the criteria above, what are you waiting for in adding them?  (I know I waited to add awesome sites like Micah Baldwin’s Learn to Duck?  Thanks, Chris, for reminding me…and thanks for the mention, too).  If you’re having trouble remembering people, consider skimming through your sent emails a week after some of the big events you attended, assuming you remembered to send a follow-up (if not, shame on you)
• Is there something more specific or strategic you’re looking to learn about your subject area? If you build web apps, do you want to delve into the metrics side of things?  If you’re involved with social media, do you want to focus on uses for Twitter or perhaps consider some of the bigger questions?  It’s easy to stick with the the big-name, more generalist bloggers, but sometimes depth is better than breadth.  If you’re having trouble finding sites, try visiting AllTop, searching Technorati, or searching for “favorites sites x” or “top sites x” in Google where x is a very specific subject area (get more general if x doesn’t work on the first try).  More on finding sites is in step 1 of my Guide to Social Media.  Or, better yet, ask your friends in that industry what they read

The Goal: Make this Stuff Useful, Make it Make You

Time and again I’ve heard people say, “I don’t use RSS anymore” or “I hear about all the good stuff from Twitter.”  If you’re looking for news, that’s fine.  But I call bullshit if you’re looking to educate yourself and grow relationships.  You can be the sheep or you can be the shepherd: your choice.

RSS is the best way for you to conveniently gather information from exactly the sources you choose while getting an opportunity to ask questions and participate.  (It’s not the only piece of the puzzle, but I think Twitter is complementary and not a replacement.)  If you’re not using RSS, it’s because you haven’t found a way that works for you.  My suggestions above may not be in line with your use for it, but there’s no denying that we’re influenced by the words we read everyday.

If you’re reading the right stuff, then you’re growing into becoming that right stuff, too.  I hope you’ll consider doing a big review of your RSS reader (just don’t cut me!) since now is a good time.  You’ll be astonished at how refreshing it feels to read new people…and how quickly you start growing.

How do you ensure that the right information is coming to you?  Are there other tools you use, such as Popego (example)?

Flickr photo credit: wili_hybrid

I’m going to explore what expectations were met and what themes reoccurred.  Thank you again for your time.

Results from 2007’s Resolutions

First, I want to start with the specifics (if you’re looking more for what I’ve learned, feel free to skip to the next heading).  I began this year with several concrete goals, and I succeeded with many:

• Almost all the books I’ve read have been ones I really enjoyed, a stark contrast from 2007.  In particular, I’ve read a great deal of Murakami and Fitzgerald…and outside of the election, I’ve ignored most of the not-very-pleasant world/local  news
• I wanted a trip abroad, and I’ve been out of this country for more than 2 months this year (and of town more than 3), visiting Iceland, Thailand, Spain, Hong Kong, and France
• I did speak at a national conference (TechCocktail) and will be speaking at SXSW in March

In some of my goals I didn’t exactly succeed:

• It took longer to launch AwayFind than I expected, which means that we do not have the 5,000 users I hoped for.  But we have a lot of users and I recognize the necessary tactics to grow my user-base in 2009
• My hopes for having someone handle sales/proposals for SET is no longer a goal—I want the company to remain small and to continue to focus on referrals
• I have entertained at my house many times but not 6 big gatherings.  At a certain point it related to financial reasons, but at other times it was my state of mind.  I need to figure out what sort of entertaining I want to do in 2009
• I did not blog 3 times per week, but did post 95 times here (and many more if you consider other sites), which I consider respectable…especially since my goal shifted to once per week as the year wore on.  About halfway through the year I stopped writing for social media and focused just on writing what I wanted to.  That slowed my growth in readership, but I’m still happy knowing that my words do not go unread (the audience here has quadrupled in size).  I also was published twice at Lifehacker, linked by them once, and have written for Dumb Little Man

The one goal where I do not feel I succeeded was perhaps the most important, and probably the reason I still blog.  That goal was “to find a sense of completion on a daily basis.”  I will continue to concoct systems that make this easier for me, and I’ll continue to seek out balance.  But daily completion (or to the extent to which I’d be satisfied) remains elusive.

What I’ve Learned About Myself in 2008

Ha!  Like I could fit that in a few paragraphs.  But I will break it out into a few ideas, all of which were poignant and in some ways new to this year.  I plan to touch on how to apply some of these lessons in my next post, which will be my ambitions for 2009.  But in the mean time, here’s some of what I’ve realized:

• You are the company you keep.  I wrote 5 or 6 articles about this, but this bears repeating: if you want to grow, you need to surround yourself with people who are in that position or are growing toward it.  You will be like your friends, for better or worse.  There’s nothing better than investing in these relationships, but be careful to choose them wisely. People like Clay Collins, Stever Robbins, Lokesh Dhakar, and Tim Koelkebeck are just a few of the people who have inspired me and with whom I’ve been lucky enough to get to know this year.
• Travel, like people, can change who you are.  I never studied abroad in college, so I’ve been kind-of catching up this year.  But as much as I enjoy learning about other cities, I particularly enjoy immersing myself in a new way of life.  Not just meeting people there, but living that way, if at all possible.  I have spent nearly a month in Barcelona this year, and I’ve fallen in love with the culture.  The Catalan approach to work and relationships are different than those in the US.  I’m not saying I agree with all of it, but it’s changed me, slowed me, awoken me.  Much as the company I keep changes me, the location that hosts the company and the greater context can also play an important role
• Moving on or giving up are sometimes the first steps.  Even though I’ve put my heart and soul into something, that doesn’t mean I have to continue with it.  Just like not all debt is bad debt, walking away may be the first step forward in a long time.  So I’ve learned to give up, go home, and be especially careful about the necessary evils I hold on to
• Nothing happens quickly, but everything happens someday.  There are two very important lessons here: however long you expect to spend on a major endeavor (that’s unlike one you’ve completed in the past), it’s always going to take more (sometimes 10x more time and money).  You may be unaware that AwayFind was the smallest of the projects I wanted to take on, rather than the product idea that I’m most passionate about.  But the wisest decision I’ve made was to create AwayFind first, since it’s been a rather long and involved endeavor for as supposedly simple as it was.  The consequences of beginner mistakes on the other project would have come at a far higher toll.  The same thing goes with changing my behavior for specific goals.  In all cases, it’s possible to grow and achieve, but serious growth and serious achievement cannot take place linearly or in a short while, at least not for me.
• Even when not tied to a goal or a life mission, some things shape you and should be embraced.  While it’s not always possible to stimulate the senses: eating well, visiting art, experiencing live music, whatever… there are some things that really affect my mood and ability to produce, even without an obvious reason.  For instance, the week of my product launch I had sushi every day, because I feel healthy and energized when I eat good sushi, and I wanted to perform my best that week.  Similarly, dancing or photography are sometimes just the right medicine.  I’m also considering moving to the city, for similar reasons.  These things may cost extra money or defy common sense for what I should be focusing on, but I guess it’s just part of taking care of oneself

So How Do I Feel About 2008?

For most of 2008, I learned a bit about myself while accomplishing some ambitions.  I haven’t found all the answers and there’s a lot of hard work ahead, but even with our current economic forecast, I’m comfortable being idealistic.  I’ll let you know in my next post what I’m hoping for, but I’ll give you a hint: I hope that 2009 is about impact on others (since I think that a lot of ‘08 was mostly valuable for me).

And how about you—is there a lesson learned from 2008 you’d be kind of enough to share?  Feel free to link to your own reflections or resolutions.

Perhaps you should strongly consider just how ‘necessary’ the ‘evil’ is.

I’m sitting in an apartment in Barcelona (view from my terrace above), where I’ll be for the rest of the month.  The last two days have been a whirlwind of Spanish, dancing, and discovery.  I already feel totally immersed, enough to recognize how important and different this world is.  (perhaps more on that in another post)

Then tonight I’ve once again gotten caught up on the web.  This past week I’ve been at the Le Web conference, where I got to spend serious time with really frickin’ smart folks.  It made me realize that if I want AwayFind to succeed I have about 6 million things I need to do.  And I want to do them.

So these are examples of priorities.  I have others, as well as many responsibilities, some of which I enjoy and some that are necessary evils.  As we get older, that seems to become our realities.  And yet.

Which of these financial, practical, and always-been-there responsibilities are weighing me down too much?  What would happen if I just changed?  4,034 miles away, things back in the States feel unreal.  The truth is, reality is what you make of it.  And I doubt I could screw up that bad.

How about you—what do you want to do next year?  It’s almost 2009.  When you start plotting out your ambitions, what’s holding you back?  Do you really need that extra job or new device?  What can you do so that your day is free from necessary evils but instead is aligned with things you’re passionate about?

If a necessary evil is against who you want to be, is it really necessary?  I think many of my assumptions about what needs to continue as-it-always-was were unfounded.  How about yours?