Timeboxing: An Essential Strategy for the Solo Founder

Learning to operate two companies at once has been an illuminating challenge, to put it mildly. While connecting with fellow solo founders on Twitter has yielded useful insights, separating the signal from the noise is an art form. However, assuming at least some subset of advice comes from an authentic place, there are lessons to extract.

Chief among them is the importance of timeboxing – allocating fixed periods of focused work on a single task or project before moving on to the next priority. For those accustomed to grinding away at one crucial activity until it's complete, this represents a radical shift in habit and mindset. Historically, I've had trouble stopping one vital task to pivot to another, driven by a desire to finish what I've started. But that tendency towards exhaustion and burnout won't serve when responsibilities multiply.

This week, I'm embracing timeboxing in earnest.  While pulling an all-nighter may be tempting to cross something off the list, I must resist, as balance must prevail. Life continues outside of work, and rest remains non-negotiable. Time, our scarcest commodity, must be spent strategically across responsibilities if sustainable progress is to be made.

Timeboxing may seem an artificial constraint, especially for consummate multitaskers. But for solo founders navigating multiple high-stakes demands, it's a vital strategy for optimizing productivity and wellbeing. Developing the discipline to trust in its effectiveness and overcome discomfort with stopping mid-flow represents an investment that will hopefully pay off – keeping both companies moving through focused effort and avoiding burnout. Whether timeboxing proves a long-term solution remains to be seen. For now, the experiment continues.