[The Gateway III — extended version] Tricky Business

So you’re running a business; or at least working seriously on an idea you’ve had. It has the potential to change the world, render you free of financial worries forevermore, and you want to spend as much time as possible developing it. However, this annoying six-letter word called “degree” is still lurking over your head.

It’s a situation I was in during the 2nd and 3rd year of my degree and one which any budding student entrepreneur has to face. This week we’ll look at some techniques you can employ to make your seemingly unmanageable life not only manageable, but successful and fulfilling as well.

The first thing to establish is that you’ll need to be productive. In 2002, David Allen published a book entitled Getting Things Done (GTD) which has since sold over 500,000 copies and been published in 23 languages. Attracting a huge following in the blogosphere, many would name the book as the authority on the subject of productivity. At the core of Allen’s methodology is a 5-phase workflow process:

1. Collect
This involves capturing all existing data which needs to be processed – this might be in a physical inbox (your desk or bedroom floor), an e-mail inbox, a notebook, a mobile phone, or any other place you store information. The idea here is to get everything out of your head and into a collection device ready for processing, and Allen stipulates that all data stores need to be processed at least once per week.

2. Process
Here, the emphasis is on being structured. For example, in an inbox, one should start at the top, deal with one item at a time and never put anything back into ‘in’. If an item requires action, then:

• do it, or
• delegate it, or
• defer it.

And if an item does not require action, then:

• file it for reference, or
• throw it away, or
• incubate it for possible action later.

3. Organise
Organising involves keeping your to-do lists and calendar up-to-date – although Allen specifically recommends that the calendar be reserved for the hard landscape: things which absolutely have to be done by a particular deadline, or meetings and appointments which are fixed in time and place. To-do items should be reserved for their own separate list.

4. Review
To-do lists of action items and reminders will be of little use if not reviewed at least daily. Given the time, energy and resources available at that particular moment, decide what is the most important thing to be doing right now, and…

5. Do it

Here are some handy tips that will both make you more productive and enrich your life:

Tip #1: Use to-do lists and a calendar to GTD.

Following the success of Allen’s book, millions of people around the world are now applying his principles through to-do list and other online productivity applications. I personally favour Google Calendar and Remember The Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com) integrated with my Gmail account for my to-do lists.

Tip #2: Manage expectations of others and learn to say “no”.

The second key to achieving success in multiple areas of your life lies in appropriately managing the expectations of people. Your tutor wants this, your co-founder wants that, your customers are e-mailing you for something else, your investors are bugging you about this other thing and you still want to maintain healthy relationships with your friends and family. Managing expectations of others is something Rob Eyre (a 33-year old Software Developer & MBA and our first employee at GroupSpaces) often reminds me of when discussing strategic issues for my business.

Most people instinctively think about these issues – but seldom in a structured manner. One technique I find useful is illustrating all your important relationships in a mind-map. A little bit like what Facebook describe as the “social graph”, where each person is a node and each relationship is an edge; except with this mind-map, you only draw lines which have one end attached to yourself. Having done this, you should be able to work out where people have expectations of you and also where you feel it is important you meet these expectations. However, since you don’t have enough time to ‘do everything’, it makes sense to spend the time you do have focused on the people and activities you care about most.

You’ve probably heard the old adage “you’ve got to be cruel to be kind” and I believe that this is particularly appropriate here. You have to learn to say “no” sometimes and not take on certain commitments, else you’ll end up letting people down, damaging their trust in you and as a result damaging your relationships. If you’ve worked out which people you really value and ensure you meet your commitments to them, not only are you likely to be more successful, but you are also likely to feel more fulfilled in your relationships.

Tip #3: Don’t procrastinate; prioritise, break down tasks and delegate.

Thirdly, you can’t expect to run a business and obtain a good degree by spending time procrastinating. Whether it’s browsing Facebook, reading blogs or watching television we all procrastinate. Jan Sramek, a 2nd year student at LSE who got 10 A’s at A-level, currently runs two businesses, recently secured seed funding for a third and also works part-time in a hedge fund has a firm view on the topic:

“Never read something just for the sake of reading it, let alone ‘because everyone else is reading it’ – if you can’t see the payoff, trash it.”

There are many underlying causes people attribute to procrastination, but the bottom-line is that we are avoiding dealing with the emotions we are experiencing. It’s an escape.

2006 UK Graduate of the Year Kirill Makharinsky is one of the most productive people I know. Having presided at Oxford Entrepreneurs, founded Enternships.com and AmIWorthIt.com, played 3 university-level sports and still achieved a double first in Mathematics, he certainly isn’t one to procrastinate, and when you hear his strategy for meeting his commitments, you begin to understand why:

“Decide on the time you’ll need for each to achieve an outcome you’ll be happy with, plan your schedule out, and go for it. If the balance doesn’t work, change it up after a few weeks, and so on, until it does work. Prioritise like crazy. Get into a strict routine. Be smart in getting the help of others with your degree and your business. Get into a situation where people that you respect rely on you to make that balance work. Get regular advice from people who’ve done it before to make sure you’re doing it right.”

Also worth emphasising here is the importance of delegation. Use interns, colleagues, friends and family to help spread your workload. Just because you’re struggling to get to a task shouldn’t mean that it doesn’t get done. Break the task down into smaller components and delegate.

Tip #4: Utilise life hacks

You might have heard of the term “life hack”. The original definition of this term referred to computer programming tricks that filtered and processed data streams like e-mail and RSS feeds. Today, anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever and non-obvious way might be called a life hack. Here are some particularly powerful ones which I’ve come across in recent years:

• The 2-minute rule.
Also advocated by David Allen, this rule says that any task which needs performing and will take less than 2 minutes should be performed immediately.

• Carry an idea book.
I recently heard that one of Richard Branson’s secrets of success is a little black book which he carries around in his back pocket. Each time he comes up with an idea, he records it in the book, and he reviews his list a couple of times each day, crossing out the ideas that aren’t actually so good, and keeping the ones he really likes. At number 11 on The Times Rich List in 2007 with a personal fortune of £3.1 billion, there’s some evidence that this technique can pay off.

• Find a place for everything.
Whether it’s bills, receipts, loose change, laundry or random pieces of paper, if you have a place for it, the physical and mental clutter these things can create is removed.

• All nighters.
I’m a strong advocate of the power these can have, but also share Sramek’s firm opinion on where they fit:

”If you are tired at 10pm, don’t try to get over it – just get some sleep and get up early. Pulling all-nighters can be very productive, but equally a complete waste of time with productivity close to zero.”

Tip #5: Know when to quit.

Finally, it’s important to know when to quit; and there are two sides to this. If you’re business is flying, then you might need to drop out or at least defer finishing your degree. I’m sure Microsoft and Facebook wouldn’t be where they are today if Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg hadn’t dropped out of Harvard. On the other hand, if you’re business hasn’t quite had the success you were hoping and you’re degree is in serious need of a makeover then maybe it’s time to cut your losses and focus back on academic work.

Coming up next week: How do I choose between entrepreneurship and a graduate job?

You can view the original version of this article on page 10 of this week’s edition of The Gateway.

A Week of Conferences (Part 2)

The Garage

At 9am on a chilly Monday morning, I strolled down to the Said Business School with my housemate Alasdair Bell, the current President of OE (Oxford Entrepreneurs). Over the weekend, Alasdair and I had been discussing the topic for the morning Garage session – dedicated to OE. The “Garage” at Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford is a workshop where dozens of people get divided up into small groups; the groups are then guided through a multi-stage creative process and subsequently come up with ideas related to the topic in question.

I suggested:

“How can start-ups compete with Goldman Sachs to hire Oxbridge graduates?”

– a question to which many young British founders would like to have an answer. Given that the majority of the participants in the session would be current students, they settled on:

“How can we make it more appealing for graduates to go and work on a start-up rather than a large corporate?”

After some organised brainstorming which involved hundreds of Post-it notes, the groups settled on their favourite ideas. These ranged right through from a start-up in a day competition for students to a new religion with a start-up church! Sure, start-ups are definitely more than just a job – they’re a way of life, so should we create a religion for them? “Give us this day, our daily users, and…”

In my group, the idea of a Careers Fair for start-ups received the most votes. Sumon Sadhu and Rob Jones (Creative Director, Oxford Entrepreneurs) spent some time developing the idea further. It’s clear that there are deep pain points that need addressing on both sides:

• Start-ups struggle to hire top graduates. They can’t afford to hire the Randolph Hotel out for a night in Oxford. They don’t have the luxury of sitting alongside Investment Banking, Management Consulting and Law with their own fairs attracting thousands of students. Outside of their immediate personal networks, it’s very difficult for start-ups to access the talent. Even when they do advertise positions, the people who apply are often not the people they really want.
• Students generally don’t hear about the opportunities available in top start-ups. The thought of looking at what’s available on the market, creating a shortlist and sending out 10 applications (a la corporate job hunting) to the top 10 most appealing companies just doesn’t occur. And even if they wanted to find these start-ups, where would they start their search?

Personal contact is a crucial component in the recruitment process. Why should students only have the choice of careers fairs filled with City recruiters? Why not have a fair for start-ups too?

Having discussed the idea with Rajeeb Dey, a co-founder of Enternships^TM, it could well become a reality in 2008. If you want to get involved, e-mail me with your ideas.