How to Make Real Progress on Your Startup

As a startup founder, time is one of your most precious resources. As a time coach and trainer, I see the raw truth that aspiring business owners can waste countless hours if they fail to know and apply this time investment secret: Clarify Action-Based Priorities. I think that this principle is so important that I included it as the first of the three secrets in my book recently published by McGraw Hill.

But to give you a jumpstart on understanding what this means for you and what you can start doing right now, here’s a quick primer on the topic:

Clarify, “To free from confusion and make understandable”: As a founder, you have literally infinite possibilities for how you could spend your time. The most important step you can take on preferably a daily but at least a weekly basis is to clarify what’s important now. Depending on your stage of business development that could mean working on a business plan, meeting with investors, developing a prototype, or any number of other tasks. By clarifying what is most important to you in this moment, you free yourself from the pressure to think about everything else that has happened or will happen and to execute.

Action-Based, “Supported by something you do”: In the process of clarifying, you want to not only think about what’s important, but also what actions you need to take to move forward on this priority. It’s easy to fall into doing what feels comfortable or you enjoy doing or what everyone else seems to do and to avoid the work that will actually move you and your team forward. For instance, if you’ve clarified that writing a business plan is your top priority, you can come up with corresponding actions like “spend three hours at the library working on the first section of the business plan” or “meet with mentor to discuss my current draft.”

Priorities, “Something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives”: When you’ve clarified what’s important and decided on the corresponding actions that will fill your time, it forces you to then make choices. If writing a business plan is the top priority, then coding may need to wait or at least take up a small amount of your time. Or you may need to pull back on networking events now and then ramp up on them again once you’ve completed the business plan and your priority is to talk about it. By saying something doesn’t rank as your current priority, you’re not saying that it isn’t something that needs to be done or won’t be most important in the future. Instead you’re saying given your limited time resources in the present moment that you can’t many hours to the activity now.

By regularly clarifying your action-based priorities, you can make more progress in less time on turning your side project into a business.

Image by Flickr user Earls37a

Meanwhile, back at HQ…

We just signed a lease for this awesome space in NYC. Still pretty rough, but it’s got nice windows, wood floors, high ceilings, and an awesome little storage nook (future home of the Bootstrappist nap pod?). We’re in the fashion district and a pattern-maker had the space before us. We want the new digs to be awesome, so send us ideas for how we can set it up, cool stuff we can get (new Makerbot?), etc.