I would like to encourage you today to motivate yourself thinking how to organize your life to work faster and smarter. To do that, I will show you how a regular day in my entrepreneur life looks like. I’m a web business owner and like such, I follow a schedule (or at least I try to follow one!). So here we go with my usual entrepreneur day:
Morming
I usually wake up at 9, 9:30 AM and, after the usual things everyone’s does, I make myself a small breakfast based on a cup of coffee with milk and a lemonade. I usually sleep 4 or 5 hours per day, so I go to bed pretty late; that is why I get up at 9, 930AM every day. It’s like automatic right now, I just stop sleeping at 9:00 AM and my eyes open by themselves (spooky!). My advice here is that you need to waste no time sleeping more than you actually and really need. 4, 5 hours per day is all you want, so don’t sleep 10 or 9 because you will be wasting your time. When you die, you will have plenty time to sleep. No pain, no gain.
I take my breakfast on my desk while I check my emails on my Mac Mail Application (so cool, and so fast) and after I answer some emails, I go trough my RSS feeds for a good bunch of posts. I like to stay informed about tech news, so this is my “favorite time”.
I’m still a little sleepy, so I start to organize my day right in the middle of the coffee, the RSS feeds and the emails. I use a HPDA to write a template (handcrafted!) because my printer can’t take the 3×5 index cards (it jams!)… so I do them myself. No bother at all. I like to do one for today and three more for the days after, so I always have the following day ready.
Usually I setup my physical actions with only two actions per day; one is always reading a chapter from a current book (otherwise, I just forgot!) and the other may be having a private meeting with my imaginary counselors (as weird as it may sound) for about 30 minutes, or giving a friend a call, or sending a congratulations email to someone, or just listening to some relaxing ocean waves mp3 on the Itunes. Physical actions (also called Sharpening the saw) are made as a training exercise for your brains; if you don’t motivate yourself every day, you won’t be able to keep going on the game. The basic idea is to learn something new every day or every week, and keep your brain up to date for at least for 30 minutes per day. Those 30 minutes will stay with you forever. Great advice there.
After I answer all my emails I usually finish something from the night before (I just read the previous day HPDA card and if there is an incomplete action I pass it trough the today’s next actions card).
I spend most of my morning posting on forums, blogs and talking with people about business, is like a drink of energy I need for the rest of the day. When you post on different forums and blogs you’ll start driving some traffic to your website, and hopefully, someone will be interested enough to start visiting you regularly. That is the magic of marketing, you can try every single technique out there because most of them are free and the only thing you must invest is time. So that is what I do, I invest my time ;)
Afternoon
I’m trying to change my lunch habits because I’m a fat pig and I’m just keep “growing in all directions” every day. I usually lunch a fresh meal while I watch the local news for a while… although lately I’m watching more CNN and the BBC (they just have better and more interesting information). My break lunch its usually one hour and 30 minutes. I like to have long lunches on a regular day, but on busy days I just grab some hot dog while I work (so don’t think it’s easy to be a business owner).
After that I like to keep working on my marketing list until 3:50 PM when my ICal application start bouncing on my dock yelling me “it’s client’s time!”. On regulars days I continue working until 4:00 AM (oh yes!), but when there is something my clients need to have done quickly enough I start working on their projects as soon as I get up (and after checking my emails). But there aren’t many emergencies today, so I may work until the evening. At this time I feel like going for another coffee to the kitchen. I don’t take more than 3 cups of coffee per day.
Evening
I usually like to have a good dinner and a sleeping night, but I can’t. Every minute I spend doing anything else than work I think I’m wasting my time and money, so I can’t even think on anything else than work. Once I finish eating (and once I wash my own plate) I go directly to my Mac and keep going trough my “HPDA Today’s List”. There are always something to do or plan for the next day, you won’t be bored, I can guarantee that. Being a business owner is the most fun thing in the world! the minute you get up, the minute you start doing what you like the most, working on your business!
After going trough my Today’s Page, I usually go to sleep at 4:30 AM. If I’m exited about something I usually don’t sleep at all! I remember once one of my friends was on MSN and she went to sleep at 2:00 AM (argentina time). She is from United States, so she went to 10:00 PM actually. I was so thrilled with a client’s website that I forgot getting some sleep! my friend waked up in the other side of the world and saw me still online! she told me something I will never forget: go to sleep, you zombie. I laugh my arse off!
For regular people, working at nights may look like something from another world. I like to work, I love the game and being on it, so I usually dream about my work and what I’m doing during the day. It’s a non-stop train!
Close to 4:00 AM I answer some emails, talk with some clients (if there is one connected) and make a couple of phone call. Then, I go to bed thinking on what tomorrow will look like.
Social Life
Mr Burns from the Simpsons said on one episode:
To success in business life you must kill the four deamons: those are Family, Friends, Religion and Love life. If you do that, you will success.
50% right, 50% wrong. You need to give something in order to gain something, you won’t be able to success if you don’t. It’s all about your surrounding. Some people will be lucky enough and they will find time for their friends, family and love life while they have a business. Others won’t. That is the reality. There isn’t magic formulas here people. You will read people saying “yes, I go to pool twice per day and later I watch some movies with my friends” and you will find people like me, or others, with no time for that stuff. There are different realities, so you need to be ready to lose something in the way of success. Being ready is the best advice you can get from anyone. One thing I can promise you: it will be damn fun. Believe me!
Thanks for reading.
Cheers
Javier Cabrera
CEO, Emaginacion
Related Links
Yaro’s entrepreneur day
Articles for entrepreneur
David Allen’s GTD book
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Very interesting to read. But I will never listen to the advice about the sleep I think :-) I will always try to have at least 6 / 7 hours sleep, a minimum to stay a bit healthy I think.