Eighteen months ago, I decided to chase my passion by taking a great opportunity with an incredible company (When I Work) in Minnesota. This was a huge change for me, since it followed the sale of the company that had been my life and blood for more than five years.
Unfortunately, this move meant that for those 18 months, I’d be living away from my wife (FYI: it sucks) and I’d have quite a bit of time to kill.
I’m the kind of guy that needs to keep busy, so by December 2014, after almost a year of doing pretty much nothing else except going to work (and skydiving on the weekends), I began to get really antsy. The need to be doing something a little different got my creative juices flowing, and I started to think up and work on some new ideas.
The first project I really got my teeth into was the eBook I wrote with my good friend Rob Wormley: 100 Days of Growth. BTW my latest ebook on Content Marketing is up for pre-oder.
Getting the book to completion took around 50 hours each (of my time and Rob’s time), including a whole bunch of time spent testing new marketing tactics.
However, as “that guy” that always needs to be doing something to keep busy, I’m also not the kind of guy to do things halfway. Once I put my mind to something, I work my ass off until it’s finished. This meant that, between my day job and my work on 100 Days of Growth, I spent 6 months working more than 13 hours a day, 6 days a week.
It was tough going, but thankfully, our efforts paid off. The book has been a great success and sold over 10,000 copies, which has given me a ton of confidence as I move forward with other new projects. This is the story of how I did it…
My daily schedule
My (week) days were long, and packed with hard work (luckily, I really like hard work). Here’s what my daily schedule looked like:
5.30am – 6.00am: I’d get up at about 5.30am, and by 6am, I’d be logged on and checking my email.
7.00am – 8.30am: Answering email would take until around 7am, at which point I’d head to the gym for my morning workout.
8.30am – 6.00pm: 8.30 sharp would see me start my day job (the one I moved to Minnesota for) at When I Work.
6.00pm – 8.00pm: I tended to play it by ear a little during this part of the day, but I’d generally spend the time honing business relationships or training clients (either over the phone, via Clarity, in a video chat, or in person), and (most of the time) I’d manage to squeeze in dinner, too.
8.00pm – 11.30pm: This is when I’d be testing, writing blog posts, and working on personal projects; i.e. 100 Days of Growth, my (recently launched) tool Content Marketer and newest ebook: Content Marketing Playbook.
Weekends were a little less rigid, but almost as busy.
I’d spend Sundays reviewing everything I’d been testing and proving during the week, and working out how I could apply this stuff to my day job at When I Work.
Some days, I’d find myself absorbed more in my personal projects; on others, my day job took precedence. It would just depend where my findings led me.
Saturdays were my “day of rest.” At least, sort of. If I hadn’t managed to speak to my wife during the week (I don’t know why, but she never really appreciated my midnight phone calls…), I’d make the time to have a good long chat on the phone or over Skype. If I was really lucky, she might even come and visit me.
Saturday was also my chance to get my adrenalin flowing with some extreme sports. My first choice was always skydiving, but that’s not exactly an option year round in Minnesota. Depending on the time of year, you might catch me snowmobiling, kiteboarding, or racing cars instead.
Basically, it was really, really hard work. But it was well worth it. My life is now better than ever and, along the way, I’ve learned a heck of a lot…
1. Hard work pays off
It sounds so simple, but I wish I’d realized this sooner and started working as hard I have been recently for the 5 years I was running Single Grain.
Working 12+ hours a day may seem like a big sacrifice initially (and it is), but if the work you’re doing is leading to a situation where you can work fewer hours or have more flexibility in your working day (such as by setting up your own company), then it’s so very worth it.
Put it this way: would you rather…
Work 12 hours a day for a few years, then 3 hours a day (when you want and from where you want) for the remainder of your working life? Or…
Work 8 to 9 hours a day, when and where your boss tells you to, for that same remainder of your working life?
Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
2. Passion is my energy
Doing this over the last 6 months has been mentally and physically exhausting (to say the least), but what keeps me going is my newfound passions.
At When I Work, we’re growing at 3-4x year-on-year, which is massive. We have a great mission that I’m proud to be a part of (to help the 75 million hourly workers out there), and a really awesome team that I’m happy to be working side-by-side with.
But most of all, I love teaching and helping people, and by blogging, speaking, writing 100 Days of Growth, creating ContentMarketer.io and working on my next ebookm, Content Marketing Playbook, I get to do what I love day-in day-out.
But enough about me; I promise there’s a message here.
If you can find something you love doing – as in, not something you don’t mind doing, but something you literally jump out of bed in the mornings for – then that’s what’s going to make you feel that passion and give you the energy you need to be the success you want, and deserve, to be.
So my message to you is: do whatever it takes to find your passion and live your dream. For me, that meant moving halfway across the country, living away from my family and friends, and working very, very long days.
I made a lot of sacrifices, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
3. Where my weaknesses lie
I don’t often talk about my weaknesses on here. I’m only human, which (in this context) means two things:
I have weaknesses
I don’t particularly like talking about them
It’s pretty much the toughest interview question anyone can be asked (or ask), “What are your weaknesses?” You know you have them – and the interviewer knows you have them – but you still worry you might say the wrong thing.
I think if we can all start to be a bit more comfortable with our weaknesses – for example, by accepting that none of us are perfect, and that we all have things we’re good and not so good at – then not only will we be much happier with ourselves, we’ll also be far better teachers, managers, and teammates to those we have to work with.
Personally, I suck at building things – whether it’s flat-pack furniture or a website. I have a lot of good ideas, and I’m great at visualizing them and describing them to others. But when it actually comes to making my ideas come to life, I have to partner with a developer who helps me turn them into a reality.
I’m also not the best organizer. I put this down to me being a creative type rather than someone with a logical, organized mind. However, there are ways around this…
I get distracted easily and that causes me to lose my train of thought or forget things that happened earlier in the day. I’ve realized though that I can make a big difference to how organized I am by taking notes.
Not on paper.
They get mixed up, lost, or spilled on.
Instead, I use Evernote for jotting down the random thoughts I need to remember. For actually organizing my work and collaborating with colleagues, I use Asana.
I realize that no tool will ever be able to put together my next flat-pack closet for me. But I also know that, although there are many weaknesses that I can’t entirely overcome, I can minimize their impact by making the most of the tools and technologies that are available or by working with people that have the strengths I lack.
4. How to stretch time
During this period, I was working on so many things concurrently that I had to figure out how to be more efficient with my time.
For example, I’d outsource remedial tasks, or sometimes, just stop doing them altogether.
I also became more efficient myself; by doing certain tasks repeatedly I became much quicker at completing them. I also became better at them, which was a nice, and somewhat unexpected bonus.
Lastly, I became more disciplined with myself. It can be damn difficult (and I’m sure anyone who has ever worked for themselves will agree) to motivate yourself when you don’t have a boss leaning over your shoulder, or targets to hit that aren’t your own.
If anything, that was the toughest thing for me to overcome. I did it by setting small targets (i.e. work solidly for an hour and I can have x as a treat), and by reminding myself that the more I allowed myself to be distracted, the longer I would actually have to work.
These are all things that I’ve carried into my now somewhat-more-relaxed working life (don’t get me wrong, I still work hard – just not “13 hours, 6 days a week” hard).
If I have a task that I know someone else can do just as well as me, I tend to outsource it (assuming, of course, that outsourcing won’t cost me more than the value I put on the time I’ll save).
I’ve also learned valuable self-discipline skills, as well as how to write faster and (at least, I believe) better, and, simply, how to get the very most out of every minute of my working day.
These are things I don’t think I could have learned without putting myself in the position of wanting to achieve so much in such a small space of time.
5. The importance of networking
Over the last 6 months, I’ve spoken to 117 new people (typically, one new person a day).
There was no real agenda to this; I just wanted to exchange ideas, help others where I could, and get help from them where I could. But HOLY CRAP was this monumental to my growth.
The advice I got was incredible. The advice I gave made a few people’s careers. And you know what? Connecting with people is just fun.
It did wonders for my confidence, and I don’t exactly class myself as the shy, retiring type. I’ve always been happy to and enjoyed speaking with strangers, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t room to improve my social and interpersonal skills by interacting with more people, more often.
In the situation I was in – long days, filled largely by a personal project, it would have been easy to become introverted and forget about the world outside my work. But in hindsight, it’s clear that would have been a bad move.
By networking as much as possible, I’ve built awesome relationships with people who have helped (and I’m sure will continue to help) propel my growth, as well as many people I’d now consider friends.
If there’s a takeaway for my readers here, I’d say it’s to be a “yes man.” If an opportunity to network comes up, take it. Don’t let busy schedules, social shyness, or (and this is something I had to push through plenty times) the urge to have an early night, get in the way.
If you say “no,” you might just miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime – and that would suck.
6. Practice makes perfect
While I’m on a “being open and honest with you” roll, I might as well also tell you this: I used to suck at public speaking, and writing wasn’t exactly my strongest point either.
It used to take me between 4 and 5 hours to write a blog post, but now, it takes 30-45 minutes.
As I mentioned before, part of this came down to self-discipline. As much as I love the internet (it’s my livelihood, after all), it can also be a major pain point for me. When there’s an endless stream of information and entertainment available at my fingertips, it’s easy to get distracted.
And I’m not alone.
According to a survey from salary.com, 29% of employees waste between 1 and 2 hours a week (of time they should be working) on websites unrelated to their work. Another 21% waste between 2 and 5 hours, 8% waste between 6 and 10 hours, and 3% admitted wasting more than 10 hours!
Learning how to stay focused played a big part in improving my ability to write (and work) faster. But actually practicing was important too.
I think something we often forget is that no one is born perfect at anything. Even the most “natural” of actors take lessons. Musicians have to be taught. Writers have to learn.
Although many of us have an innate ability or natural aptitude towards certain skills, that doesn’t mean those of us who struggle a little more in a particular area can’t become masters too.
It’s widely accepted that it takes 10,000 hours to learn a new skill. However, according to Josh Kaufman, author of The Personal MBA, this is actually untrue. And I think I agree with him.
Josh believes it takes 10,000 hours to “become an expert in an ultra competitive field,” while you can actually become proficient at a new skill in just 20 hours.
Of course, that’s a ballpark figure. We’re all different. Some of us will learn faster in certain areas than others, and some skills are just more difficult to master than others. But, my personal experiences in the last 6 months have shown me that we can drastically improve our abilities in certain areas if we put our minds to it, and if we take the time needed to practice, practice, practice.
7. How to turn boredom into productivity
Initially, when I was away from my friends, family, and, most importantly, my wife, I was bored out of mind.
I had been so used to being around people I loved and that made me love life, I was at a loss for what to do with myself during the hours I wasn’t working.
However, eventually I remembered something… the age-old saying “only boring people get bored.” It hit me – I wasn’t a boring person, but I was at risk of becoming boring if I didn’t snap myself out of this apathy.
So I started off by having lots of fun. I pinpointed all of Minnesota’s extreme sports hotspots, started eating out (even if, sometimes, I had to go alone), and made sure to (as I mentioned above) make time to network with somebody new, every single day.
Once I’d managed to drag myself out of my self-induced boredom (because whatever the reason we think we’re bored, at the end of the day, we’re the only person who has the power to do anything about it), I found it was far easier to turn my downtime into productive time.
I needed that period of boredom in order to filter out the noise in my life and realize what I really, genuinely, wanted to do with all this extra time.
The boredom did, in hindsight, do me a whole lot of good.
But it’s not just me that believes a bout of boredom can benefit us.
Psychology Today cites boredom as a critical tool for triggering creativity:
“Once we’ve opened ourselves to the idea that boredom can be the initial step for creative productivity, it becomes pretty quickly apparent when those unengaged, uninterested moments are really the mind bringing a blank canvas to your psychological easel, ready for you to begin painting.”
While the University of Limerick stated that:
“Boredom increases social identification, prosocial behaviour, and nostalgia.”
Or in other words, boredom leads us towards activities that are more productive and meaningful.
Now, I’m not saying that boredom doesn’t drive some people to act irresponsibly or do stupid things. There plenty of evidence to suggest that chronic boredom actually encourages some people to engage in risk-taking behavior.
However, there are many ways to channel boredom. I chose to channel my boredom by using the time to do something that would not only mean big changes in that precise moment, but that would help make big changes in my future too.
So next time you’re bored, don’t try to pass the time playing Candy Crush on your phone or doing something silly that you know you probably shouldn’t be. Launch your website. Start writing an eBook. Learn a new skill.
You’ll kill your boredom and feel great about yourself for it.
But that’s enough about me – I want to hear from you. Have you ever gone through a period of hard work on something you care about deeply? Share your story by leaving a comment below:
The post What I Learned from Working 13.3 Hours a Day, 6 Days a Week appeared first on Sujan Patel.