{"id":2141,"date":"2013-10-13T13:49:47","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T18:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2013-10-13T13:50:26","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T18:50:26","slug":"startup-rulebook-no-3-compartmentalize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/startup-rulebook-no-3-compartmentalize\/","title":{"rendered":"Rule #3: Compartmentalize"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><strong>The Startup Rulebook<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>One of the features of running a startup is the feeling that hyenas have grabbed your extremities and are all pulling in different directions. They all want a piece of you, and if you try to dislodge the hyena gnawing on your foot, the others make headway (so to speak). So you thrash around, trying to keep them all at bay. Which only makes hyenas laugh.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/hyenas1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2170 aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px;\" title=\"Startup Rulebook\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/hyenas1.jpg\" alt=\"Startup Rulebook\" width=\"374\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/hyenas1.jpg 374w, http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/hyenas1-300x236.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 374px) 100vw, 374px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What are the hyenas (with all due respect to the list that follows)? They\u2019re different for different entrepreneurs, but often they include: cashflow, sales, operational issues, staffing, cashflow, employees, customers, spouses, children, friends, parents, and cashflow. To say nothing about the pressure on you to be a full-time cheerleader.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do the best survive? They compartmentalize.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Compartmentalization is the ability to prioritize the issues facing you, focusing fiercely on one issue, moving it forward in a meaningful way, then closing the emotional door on that issue and dealing with the next one in the same way. That\u2019s to say, you poke the hyena gnawing your foot in the eye \u2013 enough to make him wonder if you\u2019re worth the trouble \u2013 then trusting you\u2019ve done your best for now, you forget him and move on to the next hyena for suitable treatment, knowing you\u2019ll be back. The effect on you is that you feel less stressed and more in control.<\/p>\n<p>A very effective approach to compartmentalization, which I adapted from <a title=\"Stephen Covey First Things First\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/First-Things-Stephen-R-Covey\/dp\/0684802031\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1381682056&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=first+things+first\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Covey\u2019s work<\/a> many years ago, goes like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Have a clear sense<\/strong> <strong>of your goals<\/strong> for each aspect of your life (personal, family, social, work, community \u2013 as appropriate to you). With your goals in mind, place your burning issues \/ priorities (a.k.a. hyenas) into Covey\u2019s Quadrant:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/covey_quad.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2145 aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px;\" title=\"Startup Rulebook\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/covey_quad.jpg\" alt=\"Startup Rulebook\" width=\"374\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/covey_quad.jpg 374w, http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/covey_quad-300x236.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 374px) 100vw, 374px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Create 7 compartments<\/strong> and place the 7 most important issues from Q1 and Q2, as measured against your goals, into each compartment. You\u2019re going to struggle to deal with more than 7 issues effectively any one time, so prioritize against your goals, knowing that you\u2019ll be coming back to the ones which don\u2019t make the first cut.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Block off a solid one hour of time<\/strong> throughout the week for each compartment. Do your blocking on Sunday for the coming week. As Covey points out, if you treat your compartments like rocks you place in a jar at the start of the week, you\u2019ll be amazed at how much filler (meetings, paperwork, proposals, travel, firefighting) can be poured into the space around these rocks in your jar. But addressing these rocks is the key to your feeling in control, so the rocks can\u2019t be moved under any circumstance. This might cause you to book meetings with yourself at 6 in the morning or 9 at night, but try it for a few weeks and see what happens.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Give your best attention <\/strong>to each compartment for that one hour. Shut everything else out. Move the issue ahead in some way that is both important and meaningful.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWant to make your spouse feel he\/she is important to you? Spend that hour thinking and setting-up simple ways you can demonstrate the truth of that over the next week. Maybe you end up sending a postcard from the airport, flowers on the Thursday night, and booking a bike ride, run, or wine tour together on the Saturday. The next week you come up with a new set of ideas. (For a truly inspirational look at how entrepreneurs can make relationships work, see Brad Feld and Amy Batchelor\u2019s book, \u201c<a title=\"Brad Feld Startup Life\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Startup-Life-Surviving-Relationship-Entrepreneur\/dp\/1118443640\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1381682093&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=startup+life\" target=\"_blank\">Startup Life<\/a>\u201d.)<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMaybe sales aren\u2019t where they need to be. In the compartment dedicated to dealing with that issue, you might decide that it\u2019s time to have a face-to-face meeting with your best and your worst customers, focusing entirely on what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not for them. So you start booking them. Those customer meetings can become your one-hour compartment for the sales issue in coming weeks.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhen you focus on one thing and one thing only, blocking out all the other noise that gives rise to your stress, it\u2019s amazing how much progress you can make against your priorities \u2013 and how good you feel about it because you\u2019re moving the important things ahead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Shut the compartment door after that one hour<\/strong> and focus on the other things that make up your day. Because you know that you moved an important issue ahead, and that you will be dealing with your other compartmentalized issues similarly through the week, you\u2019ll likely feel less stressed, more in control, and better able to do the firefighting and cheerleading that awaits you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Control of your destiny is exhilarating. Instead of being a hyena play-thing, you\u2019re purposefully choreographing your hyenas\u2019 actions, one step at a time. They\u2019ll never stop pulling at your extremities, but by improving your ability to compartmentalize, you\u2019re walking the hyenas instead of them walking you. Over time, some might even say that you wear your hyenas well.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style1 like-2141 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='like' data-post_id='2141' data-nonce='af2360c3d8' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-2141 lc'>+1<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style1 unlike-2141 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='2141' data-nonce='af2360c3d8' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-2141 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div> <div class='status-2141 status align-left'><\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Startup Rulebook<br \/>\nOne of the features of running a startup is the feeling that hyenas have grabbed your extremities and are all pulling in different directions. They all want a piece of you, and if &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,121],"tags":[134,133,135,132],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2141"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2185,"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions\/2185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.feedthebeast.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}