I always knew I was a pretty organized person -- but then came moonlighting for a startup. To be honest, I think we can all push ourselves to be as productive as possible, but sometimes it takes a specific situation to make us fulfill our potential. I found this out quickly, as I have been moonlighting as CFO and head of collaboration for Vishion, a tech startup, for about six months now. Balancing the financial analytics, expense tracking, P&L management, blog editing, retailer reach out for our pilot and overall sanity outside of my day job certainly takes a few hacks to prioritize and keep up with the fast pace of startup life. If any of you out there are juggling being CFO of a startup -- or moonlighting in general -- these hacks are for you.
Send your requests first.
The first workday productivity hack I have is to send your requests first. This means, in the first 30 minutes of your workday, send your email requests out first. Don’t answer other people’s requests (within reason, of course -- an urgent email from your CEO you may want to handle first), send your own. This gets off of your plate all of those things you have on your mind fresh in the morning.
Once you are done with this, you will go ahead and work on the tasks others have sent to you. Not only does this provide other people more time to get your requests back to you, it also allows you to make sure, as the day wears on, you haven’t forgotten to ask for what you need. You have already taken care of that as the first task of your day. This typically starts out at about 5:30 a.m. for me with my startup requests, and then again at 8:00 a.m. for my day job, following up again at about 6:30 p.m. for the startup (for any requests that have been answered during the day or others I have thought of).
Eat a live frog.
Mark Twain is famously credited with saying that if the first thing you do in the morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the rest of the day knowing the worst is behind you. The principle behind this is pretty great, and I think it holds true in many aspects of life -- not just work. So, what this means is do the task that you don’t want to do first.
Why is this? Let’s be honest, we all have tasks that we just don’t want to do, whether they are going to take a lot of brain power or will take a long time and you’ve been putting them off. Just do it. Honestly, you will feel so much better. Getting those things done and out of the way at the start of your day makes for a much better day, because it then clears up the rest of your day for the tasks that you really want to work on.
A great example of this for me most recently was when I knew the revenue and growth analytics I would be doing for the startup would take upwards of four hours once I collected all my starting data. I had a week to finish this for some grant and incubator applications, however, I knew it would be best if I just got rolling so I wasn't stressing about the timeline. So, I had this done in two evenings. And, let me tell you, as a CFO and chronic planner, it felt so good to be done. I was also able to let it sit for a day or so, go back and review and make sure everything that needed to be accounted for was.
Eisenhower’s Urgent And Important Matrix
When I am planning my mornings and evenings with the startup, this is crucial. My urgent and important tasks typically include finishing financials for grants, accelerators and incubator applications, as well as the financials for our investor pitch. However, as with any startup, you wear multiple hats -- and my other hat is head of collaboration. This also means I have two bloggers producing content that needs editing and publishing, as well as retailer reach-out to participate in our startup pilot, and these tasks certainly end up in the urgent and important quadrant all the time. So, what is the Urgent And Important Matrix? It is a way to prioritize your tasks. Below is an example of how you set this up:
1. The very first quadrant in the top left is the quadrant where you place tasks that are both urgent and important. These are your top priority tasks that need to get done. So, as far as priorities go, these tasks get done first.
2. Tasks in the top right are the tasks you complete after quadrant No. 1. These are the tasks that are in fact very important but not as urgent. You will write down your tasks that qualify for that in this quadrant.
3. The third on your priority list are those tasks classified in the bottom left quadrant. These tasks are urgent but not so important. Now, the tasks that can be placed here are often tasks that other people may think are important but might not fall into your first two quadrants, depending on what else you have on your plate.
4. The bottom right quadrant is the lowest level of priority for the tasks you have. These tasks are not urgent and not important to you. You may find that you actually end up putting more tasks here than you would initially think -- I know I do.
The beauty of this is that it eliminates some of the stress and feelings of being overwhelmed, as it gives you a clear view of your priorities and must-do tasks. This productivity hack is truly a game changer, in my opinion.
Cheers to a productive day!
