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My New Year’s Resolution: Do Less, Slower


I am setting my priorities for 2012 and starting by betting that doing less, slower in will lead to accomplishing more, period.

Start-ups are a natural home to frenetic activity. People work super hard and put in long hours to see their vision fulfilled. In this world you have to do more than you think is possible faster than imaginable.  Investors are the same way, doing everything we can to see everything, go to every event, talk to every entrepreneur and make sure we don’t miss out. On either side of the table chasing every opportunity without focus or priorities is a fast path to working more and more and accomplishing less and less.

I love hustle, but hustle without depth and focus is a waste of time.

With this in mind, I spent some time looking back at 2011 – the milestones in life and at work.  Life was great with a move to Brooklyn and a new baby. Professionally 2011 was fantastic in a lot of ways and I loved spending a year in New York meeting really smart people who are busting it to build really cool stuff. However, looking back, I brute forced my way through much of the year and in 2011 I got eaten by my inbox.

Last year I spent a lot of time in the glorified position of inbox zero, but at what cost? What was urgent (often for other people) bubbled to the top and got done, but things that are important to me – time to engage deeply with a product or service; a lunch meeting that extends into post lunch coffee when the conversation is great; letting an idea you are passionate about or area you want to learn about consume you for a morning or a day; carving out time to chip away at a long term project in a consistent way for a month or a year – got squeezed out of the calendar.

My 2011 accomplishments, the goals achieved, all came from the discipline to focus and the control to slow down and make time for deeper, more meaningful engagement and learning. But somehow, the sense of accomplishment in the measurable elimination of unread e-mail often over-shadowed the need to prioritize my time, energy and focus each day.

I can’t let this happen again, so all the respect in the world to Brad and David, but in 2012 my new year’s resolution is to do less, slower.

 

 

This entry was posted on January 5, 2012, 1:58 pm and is filed under First Round Capital, Pattern Matching. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

  • http://jamesondetweiler.com/blog Jameson Detweiler

    Funny timing. Just tweeted about this myself. Building things well takes time to think about it. Creating a lot of relationships is easy. Establishing relationships with depth takes time and focus.

    We have so man inputs these days, so many channels to monitor. I’ve finally admitted I can’t keep up with all of them.

  • http://www.sneakerheadVC.com/ phineasb

    Exactly. I want to invest in products and services that move people. Meaningful technology. I want to understand this stuff deeply and be able to add a ton of value where I engage. Broad, shallow understanding or networks will always add thin value. Focus. Go deep or go home.

  • http://startupcfo.ca startupcfo

    I’m with you. My theme for 2012: mono tasking.

  • http://www.sneakerheadVC.com/ phineasb

    I like that term. I may borrow it but will give you a verbal footnote

    Phineas Barnes
    Principal, First Round Capital phin@firstround.com | @phineasb | sneakerheadvc.com

  • http://www.hypedsound.com jonathanjaeger

    Good point. There are studies that prove multi-tasking leads to less productivity. Just hard to convince our irrational minds of that fact.

  • http://www.feld.com bfeld

    The notion of “Do Less, Slower” is completely complementary to “Do More Faster.” Part of “Do More Faster” is to have a clear rhythm exactly like what you are describing. I’ve written about this a lot on Feld Thoughts when I describe my daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly rhythms. 

    So – I applaud you for focusing on what matters, instead of being a slave to the endless unimportant urgent stuff that confronts us all continually every day.

  • http://www.sneakerheadVC.com/ phineasb

    Thanks Brad. The title was certainly in homage to the book (and to be catchy) not a knock. I actually love the stuff you have written on rhythms (http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/03/the-rhythms-of-life.html) and this photo is from my desk — the page of text to the right is your daily-weekly-monthly-quarterly-annually-decadal rhythm advice.

  • http://www.feld.com bfeld

    Awesome!

  • http://blog.jdconley.com JD Conley

    I love this motto. I’ve been a practitioner of this for years. Usually before I do something I ask myself if it’s either a) The most important thing I could be doing right now or b) Something fun I need in order to relax.

  • http://www.sneakerheadVC.com/ phineasb

    Tonight I am after b)…

    Phineas Barnes
    Principal, First Round Capital phin@firstround.com | @phineasb | sneakerheadvc.com

  • http://twitter.com/cinevore Matt Conant

    Thank you for this!

  • http://twitter.com/shinygrape Stephanie Yuhas

    Thank so much! It dawned on me this week that somehow, my business has quadrupled in size and at this level, is no longer sustainable. Looking back on 2011, I actually felt ill thinking about how much wasted time I spent on e-mail, appeasing people that did not have the courtesy to do 2 minutes of research on their own, answering to demands rather than realistic, mutually beneficial goals for sustainability. I’ve identified my goals and even more importantly, the people that I legitimately want to work with in the coming years – and I’m going to put some blinders on. And the next time someone complains that I missed their tweet, didn’t see their g-mail, didn’t notice their “blah blah” on Facebook…I’m referring to this article.

  • Rich Sedmak

    Totally agree.  Some adversity this past year really made me realize how much this is true.  I spent the last few months of 2011 in and out of the hospital unable to work if I tried (gives you some serious perspective too).  As I’ve been recovering and have limited energy, it forced me to understand which of the things on my to-do list were creating actual enterprise value versus merely keeping me active.  I’ve resolved to do one big thing every day that I know has an impact, and take the time to do it really well – everything else, I call them as I see them, but I know I can sleep well knowing that my limited energy had yield.    

  • http://www.sneakerheadVC.com/ phineasb

    Exactly. Hope you are continuing to get better (your health)

    Phineas Barnes
    Principal, First Round Capital phin@firstround.com | @phineasb | sneakerheadvc.com

  • Anonymous

    Great post Phin – Kudos for sharing something so personal, real, and poignant.  You sum it up well with this sound bite: ”Hustle without depth and focus is a waste of time.”