Personally, I didn't and don't recommend it for people doing coding related startups that require intense concentration.
It's very hard or impossible, or at the very least massively inefficient to produce any useful code with fragmented time blocks.
My weekday schedule with a full time technical leadership job in big tech in NYC was:
- Wake up at 8:30-9 AM, shave and eat small breakfast
- First meeting at 9:30 AM
- Work 10 AM - 8 PM with a day full of Zoom meetings and 1-1s and intermittent 15-20 minute intervals to write code which was also expected of me. I needed to lead projects with people in different timezones as part of my job expectations hence the late hours.
- 8 PM - 9:30 PM: late dinner (I lived in NYC so I went out to restaurants a lot) or meet a friend
- 9:30 PM - 10:30 PM: gym
- 10:30 PM - 11:30 PM: respond to fires on Slack, finish some code I didn't have time to do during the day because I was doing too much leadership shit - or decompress/youtube/video game
- 11:30 PM - 12 AM: shower, get ready for sleep
- 12 AM - 1 AM: go to sleep
Could I have cut out all restaurants, social obligations, batch cooked the same meal for the whole week and mixed in an hour or two of dev on side projects during the day and spent my entire weekend doing side projects?
Sure, but my brain was completely fried from having a stressful job and I wasn't in the best mental position to concentrate and be creative on new startup ideas. Besides, that kind of schedule isn't sustainable and will only work for a few months max before some kind of burnout sets in.
IMO, best to commit to one thing at a time as it relates to work. If you're employed full time, stack cash and quit when you have the right amount of runway to focus on a startup full time for a few years. Helps if you can move countries as your runway will be massively extended doing that if you come from a western country with a high COL.
Don't try to half ass a startup while also inevitably half assing your job.
Not sure that I have one really - I wake up around the same time and hack on code / marketing all day. No meetings. More time for socializing at the end of the day
Personally, I didn't and don't recommend it for people doing coding related startups that require intense concentration.
It's very hard or impossible, or at the very least massively inefficient to produce any useful code with fragmented time blocks.
My weekday schedule with a full time technical leadership job in big tech in NYC was:
- Wake up at 8:30-9 AM, shave and eat small breakfast
- First meeting at 9:30 AM
- Work 10 AM - 8 PM with a day full of Zoom meetings and 1-1s and intermittent 15-20 minute intervals to write code which was also expected of me. I needed to lead projects with people in different timezones as part of my job expectations hence the late hours.
- 8 PM - 9:30 PM: late dinner (I lived in NYC so I went out to restaurants a lot) or meet a friend
- 9:30 PM - 10:30 PM: gym
- 10:30 PM - 11:30 PM: respond to fires on Slack, finish some code I didn't have time to do during the day because I was doing too much leadership shit - or decompress/youtube/video game
- 11:30 PM - 12 AM: shower, get ready for sleep
- 12 AM - 1 AM: go to sleep
Could I have cut out all restaurants, social obligations, batch cooked the same meal for the whole week and mixed in an hour or two of dev on side projects during the day and spent my entire weekend doing side projects?
Sure, but my brain was completely fried from having a stressful job and I wasn't in the best mental position to concentrate and be creative on new startup ideas. Besides, that kind of schedule isn't sustainable and will only work for a few months max before some kind of burnout sets in.
IMO, best to commit to one thing at a time as it relates to work. If you're employed full time, stack cash and quit when you have the right amount of runway to focus on a startup full time for a few years. Helps if you can move countries as your runway will be massively extended doing that if you come from a western country with a high COL.
Don't try to half ass a startup while also inevitably half assing your job.
This 👆 Don't try to half ass a startup while also inevitably half assing your job.
Laser focus at 1 thing at 1 time. That's the key to success. Juggling too many commitments is not a pretty sight.
That's a crazy schedule. What does your work schedule look like now while you're working on your startups?
Not sure that I have one really - I wake up around the same time and hack on code / marketing all day. No meetings. More time for socializing at the end of the day