Time Management: Priorities
Time. I cannot ask for more. There is only 24hrs in a day, 365 days in a year. I cannot ask to stop. Time is ruthless. Time do not stop because I am sick, because I am injured or because I am feeling sad. Time will just pass by like any other day. The day I was born on Earth, the countdown to my deathbed began, with or without my permission. Also, I have no idea how much I am left with.
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. — Theophrastus
Don’t be mistaken, I am glad to be born on this Earth. I plan to make the best out of the time I have here and achieve my purpose before returning my body to Mother Nature. We each have our own definition of “best” and “purpose”. Do share with me your version of “best” and “purpose”, I’d love to know.
That being said, I want to put the focus on time management and setting priorities. As my partner and I, through more desktop research, continue to develop a deeper understanding of what we are working on, we came up with many ideas and many plans. Problem: What do we do first, and what do we do next? What is the immediate task that we should tackle? What hypothesis should we validate first?
On another occasion, I came up with a pre-program survey for the NTUitive Ideasinc.veni program participants. My objective was to understand more about the motivations and purpose of the participants joining the program. I thought if I could understand them more, I will be able to use those insights to improve on our idea. However, when I was sharing the questionnaires with my partner and mentor, they questioned me. What am I going to do with those response? What actionable insights am I looking for? Are the insights critical at this point in time? Is there something else that I should be validating first?
As an INTP, aka. Logician, I have strong tendencies to deep dive into the data gathering phase and coming up with countless and sometimes incoherent concepts, without ever moving on to the tactical phase and executing the plan. Right now, I probably got to learn how to prioritize where I should direct my attention. In a startup, resources are very limited, if we don’t pick the right battle to fight, we may end up running out of ammunition. Ultimately, losing the war. I have to choose my battles wisely.
The one thing that really holds Logicians back is their restless and pervasive fear of failure. Logician personalities are so prone to reassessing their own thoughts and theories, worrying that they’ve missed some critical piece of the puzzle, that they can stagnate, lost in an intangible world where their thoughts are never truly applied. Overcoming this self-doubt stands as the greatest challenge Logicians are likely to face, but the intellectual gifts — big and small — bestowed on the world when they do makes it worth the fight.
As we follow through with the Venture Builder program, I shall experiment and figure out a concrete plan which I can use as a template for the future. Looking forward to have more clarity on this matter as I learn more from my mentors, partner and fellow participants of the program.
