I was lucky to actually enjoy my first job out of university.
My team was awesome – full of people like me, ambitious, detail oriented, liked to have a little fun, and held themselves to a high standard. Plus, they all had more experience than me, so I could learn from all of them.
We had some small quirks in common, like we all had the habit of trying to get a task done in the time the microwave was running at home. To this day I know I can unload a dishwasher in about 3 minutes.
I share this because it speaks to the culture of the organization. It’s not like they asked us all in our interviews, “what do you do while you wait for the microwave” to see if we were all the “get sh*t done type”, and yet, their project management team was full of us.
While I was there they offered a number of “corporate trainings”.
There was one video in particular that stuck with me to this day:
That feeling of tiny rocks shooting out of my computer was EXACTLY how I felt at that job, and at almost every job that came after.
When I was junior, those little rocks came in the form of:
- Slack messages
- Google doc notifications
- Asana notifications
- “Driveby delegating” from my superiors
As I became more senior, it only got worse as I needed to be in the loop of a growing number of projects.
Plus, it felt like the day never ended because my email / Slack and everything else I needed was on my phone, and my team was international.
I became increasingly anxious in that environment.
When you’re an employee, your options are limited (but make a big difference):
- You can update your notifications settings on your computer
- You can take work apps off your phone
- You can create email filters so your attention gets spread more appropriately than treating everything the same. Some of my favs include:
- A filter for anything I was cc’ed on where the body of the email didn’t contain my name
- A filter for any newsletter I was subscribed to
- A filter for any automated notification (Asana, Drive etc.)
As a business owner though, you have a lot more options:
- You can dramatically reduce the amount of tiny rocks coming out of your computer by focusing on your business’ Food and Water (and reducing Mushroom Coffee)
- You can create communication SOPs
- You can train your team to operate more independently
- You can leverage AI
- You can delegate more and better
You created your business so you could live a lifestyle you love.
NOT so you’d be stuck doing drudgework all day.
NOT so you’d have piles of admin to get through every day.
NOT so you’d feel like you can’t possibly keep up.
If you’re an entrepreneur and the flying rocks video resonates with you, it’s time to make some changes.
What’s 1 thing you could do to have fewer rocks and more whitespace in your day?