Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Welcome July

Hopefully this will be a big month for me.  We're starting some really cool projects at Zane Benefits and we're expecting to see increased returns from some of our old ones.  It's hard not to get excited about the momentum building both at Zane and the healthcare system as a whole.

 

I've also got two weeks left to finish the freelance project I started last month.  Then I need to start full time on cbBlitz, the fantasy football site I started with my brother last year.  There's a lot going on.

 

Ok, so to avoid getting too emo with this post, I just want to mention something interesting I've noticed as my work load has gone from reasonable to OMG HOW WILL I FINISH IT ALL!!!!

 

Every time I take on a side project I worry that it might hurt my production at Zane.  Oddly enough, I think I get more productive at Zane the more work I have waiting for me at home.  I think I've boiled this down to two things:

  1. Fast Pace - It's kind of hard to go back and forth from leisure to discipline.  It's easier to wake up early every day rather than just one day a week and I think the same thing applies to the rest of your life.  The past couple of weeks I've been doing things non-stop (a trip to St. Louis, a trip to Zion, work, side-project, blogging, mountain biking...) and it's a piece of cake to keep it going once I have momentum.
  2. Cross Training - In sports, athletes train outside of their discipline to help keep themselves balanced.  I'm finding similar results by working on dramatically different projects all at the same time.  When I finish programming, I'm refreshed and ready to blog.  Then I'm ready to design.  By taking on extra work, I'm making my day job less monotonous.  I've also learned some really great things from side-projects that I've started incorporating at Zane.

My point is, I'd be less productive if I only focused on my full-time job.  I work slightly fewer hours than I would without the other projects, but I get a lot more done with the hours that I do spend at Zane.  I hope to start a company one day.  If that ever happens, I'm going to encourage every employee to take on projects outside of work.

 

What do you think?  Have you had similar experiences?


Posted by Tyler King

This post has 2 Comments

burning the candle on both ends
July 2, 2009 at 07:17 am
The perspective of 'momentum' and 'balance' as applied to your daily portfolio of activities is intriguing. But like physics and sports training, the final arbiter as to whether this is a good approach may be 'time' (But without the contra-positive we will never know). BUT - sounds like your approach is one worth trying out in July.

MMatheny
July 2, 2009 at 08:51 am
When my Mom was running a successful restaurant, she often commented that when they were at their busiest was when the service was better and there were fewer mistakes in the kitchen.  On the other hand, when business was slow and they had a lot of empty tables in the restaurant the service got sloppy, the waiters/waitresses were less attentive, and the cooks made more mistakes in the kitchen.  The relatively slow business created a more relaxed atmosphere that resulted in slower and poorer service.    However, when the restaurant was packed with customers, every employee had to work more efficiently in order to serve the customers promptly and get them out the door so they could seat more customers.  They all had to be on their game and more attentive to the tasks at hand so that everything ran smoothly.

This is consistent with your post.  I agree that people tend to be more productive and efficient when they're busy.  Although their is a limit, of course.  At some point you can have too much on your plate to the point of becoming overwhelmed and paralyzed.  But, a certain level of busyness increases productivity.  

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