Airplane mode is the new cocaine
Don't check on your Instagram, please.
A few words
Dear readers, welcome to this new article of The Systematic Venture, one of the last ones about core principles before digging into some practical tips to grow your numbers and understand your market. In this section, I would like to talk about two topics that seem crucial to me and do not get enough attention in articles and podcasts on entrepreneurship: hardcore focus and extreme ownership. Each of them could deserve a book of its own, but I doubt it would be necessary if they are presented clearly. In this article I want to give you a few actionable tips you can use on a daily basis.
As an entrepreneur, you will be understaffed from day zero and overwhelmed as soon as you start thinking about your venture. It is normal; nobody can deal with sales, product, marketing, and HR all at the same time, and almost no CEO can do all what they say they want to do. We addressed those issues in the article about Pareto principles, and I could not encourage you more to double-check it before you read this new section. Nevertheless, focusing on what matters most and having good ideas is only valuable if you meet the two following requirements when working: you are highly concentrated, and you embrace extreme ownership when facing a new problem. Let's dig in.
Airplane mode is the new cocaine
As an entrepreneur, it is highly likely that you use a smartphone and social networks, and have to deal with a constant flow of notifications coming from various applications. For those of us who are anxious, we may be stressed out by every new email coming into our inbox or unable to shut down our phone for a few hours, worried about something that is not even tangible. If you have read my other blog posts, you probably know that I am not a huge fan of social networks as they take away many things that add spice and interest to life, one of them being focus.
Your best asset isn't the money in your bank account, especially if you're facing financial tension with your company. If you're fortunate, that's great, but the following still holds true.s. In any case, your most valuable asset is your time and the freedom you have to make the best use of it while being totally focused. In practice, this means that whatever task you are dealing with at a given time should require all your focus, and you should never multitask except in extraordinary situations. This may sound like a naive statement and an obvious tip, but trust me, a large majority of humans are no longer able to concentrate on one single thing as they need to constantly check their phones and mailboxes.
If there is one thing that I like maybe even less than Instagram and TikTok, it could be the nomad-friendly coffee shops where freelancers and entrepreneurs hang out with their computers to get the job done while eating some overpriced granola and oatmeal Frappuccino. Why do people go to these places? Their atmosphere is just horrible. They often lack the authentic vibe of locally owned coffee shops, and everyone sticks on their table for the whole afternoon, staring at Slack notifications and Youtube videos on Ponzi schemes. But let's get back on track. Regardless of where you work, distraction is a common enemy for entrepreneurs. Most of us have our phones on the table, constantly bombarded with notifications and connected to various communication channels. Good communication is vital, but it's better to use fewer words more effectively than to have constant, useless connections. Don't worry, nothing critical will happen in the next two hours if you can't respond immediately. Value your time and your focus, for God’s sake.
To combat distraction, start by choosing your Pareto tasks - the few tasks that represent 80% of your potential output but that need only 20% of your time to be done. Make sure everything is in order with your teammates, check your calendar for any pending meetings, send the few emails you don't want to forget about, and close Outlook, Slack, or any other distracting applications. Activate your airplane mode, put on some noise-cancelling headphones and focus on your most important tasks. Doing so can change your entrepreneurial life.
My assistant is an idiot
Reaching total focus will not prevent you from making mistakes and going through all sort of issues. After all, you signed for that and you knew you were to deal with that. Even worst than losing your focus because somebody tweeted a random idea, is to focus on making your teammates guilty of your own mistakes. Even if you embrace a solopreneur career, you will have to deal with third-parties and talk to your clients and providers. You are bound to talk to idiots, scammers, or simply incompetent people who don’t care about doing a good job and be a human of their words.
When something bad happen, a very human reaction is get very angry and blast out your ferocity over the apparent responsible of the failure. Let me get this straight : you are totally wrong, and the only responsible is you. You chose that provider, you hired that deadbeat assistant, you signed that terrible client for a few bucks, you decided, and you should find a way to improve. I am not telling you to self-flagellate yourself by claiming your are responsible of all the wrongs in this world. You should own the full story and find where you could have made a better decision. As an entrepreneur, your judgment is your most important ability, and you should always refer to your own decisions to achieve two things :
Find where you could improve this process, and embrace total ownership of your company. You are accountable of the potential company’s failure as you work under your own name not someone else’s. Make this failure a learning experience.
Not losing your focus on what you can’t control, especially other humans that are not part of your business : concentrate on what you can improve and again, embrace total ownership. It might imply firing somebody or cutting a known provider/client.
As an entrepreneur, focus is key and distractions are the devil. Don't let notifications and useless communication steal your time and energy. Take ownership of your mistakes, learn from them, and don't waste time blaming others when it won’t lead to any outcome. Be proactive, make tough decisions when necessary, and own your business like a boss.
Don't turn on Instagram while working.
Only focus on actions that have a real output.
Avoid working from nomad-filled coffee shops, especially if there is Lounge Music.
Deep concentration for two hours will change your day.
Stop blaming employees. Teach things the way you want’em to be.
Trust your gut when interacting with people; if they seem scammy, they likely are. Your intuition is better than you think.
If someone holds an MBA, they may not be worth dealing with. That's a heuristic my grandma would have agreed with if she were a tech entrepreneur or a digi nomad. Thanks God she is not a digi nomad and always stays in Algeria, cooking Mediterranean food.
I love you grandma.
Keep the faith.