My son asked when I was finishing work. I'd been out all day and had just sat down at the computer. Then he pointed out that I hadn't seen him all day either.
I shut the laptop.
I want to build a good business, and I also don't want to miss these years of his life. Trying to do both means making choices about where the time goes.
There are periods when I push hard at night. There are also moments when sitting on the couch with him matters more than another hour at the computer. I have to keep adjusting that, rather than assume a perfect balance will happen on its own.
The same thinking applies to how long I want to keep building. I can put pressure on today's work and still lose sight of whether I'm making the business something I can stay in for years.
We once hit 444 projects created in a week, compared with around twenty in an earlier period. The immediate response was to imagine that number per day. I recognised that instinct because I always want things to move faster too.
But I also wanted us to see the progress we'd made. If every improvement only creates a new reason to be dissatisfied, the work gets harder to enjoy.
I want a product that helps people and a team I like working with. That gives me something to build towards while keeping space for the people around the business.
I'll still have ambitious weeks and frustrating ones. The challenge is to make choices that let me keep doing useful work without treating everything else as something that can wait indefinitely.
