There’s no shortage of thing for me to do in the day. If I could make two clones of myself, all three of us would end up with full time jobs from my existing workload. It’s not that I’m bad at time management or that I’m slow an inefficient, instead, it’s that I’m interested in too much and I have trouble doing anything but a deep-dive into any professional pursuit. In this article, I’ll talk a little about what I have going on and the techniques I’ll be using to manage my activities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPVsfzZgX3A
I guess that I should first say how nice it is to be blogging on the all-new ChaseRaz.com. Sure, I’ve owned this domain for an amazingly long time, and the site has even been active in the past, but not like it is now. You see, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. While that might be a good thing if I had a middle-management disposition or were an artist, it’s rather distracting to me because of my way of thinking which leans towards a hybrid of creativity and efficiency. The trouble is, with that combination, almost nothing that I create becomes efficient and almost nothing that I’ve historically done efficiently is creative.
My websites and businesses often languish in a no-man’s-land of development hell. I’ve even gained quite the reputation for being the “big idea guy” who never brings any of it to fruition. Of course, I do have my successes that others conveniently forget about, but I understand their point. It does seem as if I’m always on to the next big idea before the previous one has any legs to stand on.
Not only is perfectionism the culprit, but also the abundant motivation that comes from being an otherwise highly innovative business person. Ideas fuel me like oxygen fuels a fire. It is very likely that you can relate to the scenario I paint all too well, right?
So, what are some of the tools that I’ll use in order to overcome this development hell in my projects and move forward? Well, workaholism doesn’t necessarily hurt, but it does exacerbate the work-life imbalance. Instead of becoming a hermit that lives in the office, I’ll resort to two tried and true techniques (with some bonus selections for good measure).
Minimum Viable Product. First, I’ll focus on the MVP, or Minimum Viable Product. This concept, which comes from product and software development strives to create the base-level product to put in front of customers to provide the absolute minimum level of functionality. While viewed as “incomplete” by 20th century standards, the 21st century business person understands that the functionality is perfectly in place. Admittedly, however, we’d also acknowledge that more “fully functional” elements should be included into the product in the future. Paradigm shift? Excuse? Well, the MVP may be neither or both, but it doesn’t matter.
This blog and my YouTube channel are my own personal case study into the MVP concept. Instead of building some blogging system from the ground up (which I already have for my business technology podcast, Multinewmedia), I simply utilized the corporate training I provided in my corporate training venture (A.B. Gamma, in case you’re curious) to spin up a quick WordPress instance on a VPN.
Pomodoro Technique. First introduced to me by a productivity YouTuber, Francesco D’Alessio of the Keep Productive channel, I experimented with this time management technique in 2017. The concept is pretty simple: you work completely uninterrupted in a short burst of productivity and then take a short break. Rinse, wash, and repeat is the name of the game. After a few “Pomodoro” cycles, you take an extended break, and then come back fresh to start the cycle all over again.
Exercise and Sleep (Bonus Selections). These go without stating, normally, but as a quick reminder, I’d like to stress the importance of a proper night’s worth of rest, aerobic and anaerobic exercise, as well as proper nutrition. I suggest high fat, low carb (HCLF), but your results may vary and diet is something that you must fine-tune on an individual basis.