OK. You told your boss that you quit working since you start your own company. Now what ? this is a list of essential steps that help me to stay focused. I hope it will help others too.
1. Flatter yourself every day. You did the right thing for you. You followed your heart 100 fuckin’ percent. You walked it all the way. You’ll definitely have something to talk about with your grandchildren. You bastard.
2. Get into shape. First: it’s healthy. Second: it motivates you and it gives you more vitality. It’s scientific. Build yourself a training program and follow it. I bought myself a heart monitor and built myself a systematic “shape inrease” program on the internet. After each training I report the data and watch proudly my improvement in a graph.
3. Don’t stay in your pajama (or whatever you wear at night). You have a new job now, and more demanding than ever. Treat it as such. In your new workplace there’s no dress code. You can go to work wearing casual.
4. Manage your time. It’s precious now more than ever. Stay focused on your tasks. You’ll have to document them every day somewhere for that. Swallow the ugliest frog first every morning.
5. Separate your work area from your sleep area. I still think how exactly to do that, since I live with a roomate in a small apartment. But I’ll find a workout. You too.
6. Wake up as if you were working in a regular workplace. You know what ? You deserve an additional 30 minutes of sleep. After all, you don’t have to spend time for transportaion.
7. Learn how to cook simple meals. Otherwise, it will be very expenssive, and less healthy.
8. Dedicate time for leisure every day. The fact that you work from home doesn’t mean that you should work 12 hours a day and stay up at night.
9. Measure your daily abstractions from work. Whether it’s TV, digg, dating websites, cigarette break, coffee break, noon nap, nooner - it doesn’t help you much to achieve your goals ! You must (at least) be aware of how much time is consumed on this stuff.
10. Read this blog. It’s good for you. Consider writing one. It will help you to have a good perspective and will remind you why you’re here.
More to come.
These are good ideas, not only if you work from home on your own project, but also if you work for someone else in an office:
1. Always flatter yourself, whatever you do. It’s good for your ego.
2. Getting into shape is good. The gym is a good place to meet a potential partner as well
3. Well, if you work for someone else, you don’t have much choice here
4. Managing your time is important for all jobs, but more challenging when you don’t have a boss to monitor you.
5. I separate my work area from my sleeping area by a few streets
6. There is one difference here: when you work for yourself you can be as flexible as you want. Some people work best during the night.
7. Cooking is always good. I will be expecting a meal soon.
8. This is always very very important. I would put that at #1 for everyone. Some employers believe that by signing a contract you sign off your life, it’s the employee’s responsibility to make sure this doesn’t happen.
9. Abstractions happen everywhere. This is another challenge which is harder when there is no boss to watch over you.
10. Done.