Re-entry after the sabbatical

I've now been back to work for 2 months now after my 3 month sabbatical. As you can probably see, one of the things that's happened is I've been able to post less. I still have tons of ideas for blog posts, but making the connection between idea and execution has been a lot harder with 10 hours a day, 5 days a week spoken for.

I enjoy the camaraderie with my co-workers back at work. I also like having all of the resources available to me that a large company has. As I'm working my project, 10-20 other people are working other aspects of it that I don't need to worry about. And the fat paycheck does wonders to replenish the hole in the savings account (before you think I'm really high in this company, I want to tell you that "fat" means fat for a single guy in a city with a very low cost of living).

But the frustration of being in the corporate world still gnaws at me. We still have functional silos that I hate dealing with. The organization chart for the function that represents the consumer and the function that represents production doesn't cross until the general manager (4 levels above me). Which means any decision that requires a trade-off between the functions must be made by someone who thinks about my project for maybe 1 hour a week. Which means we need to have endless meetings and create endless documents and presentations to frame the issue for the general manager, who then makes a call based off a high level view of the project and the company's strategies.

Enough of the complaining. One of the things I'm grappling with is how to find time to work on the outside of work stuff. Another development that has affected my free time is I'm in a relationship that has really progressed in the past few months. (She doesn't quite get the allure of blogging. When I come across people like that, I blog about them. That either causes them to read the blog, or if they don't, I can talk about them without fear of repercussion). The only goal that ranks above being financially independent is being in a great relationship and family. However, she completely buys into the vision of being financially independent, so the prospects are good for finding a win-win at some point! Meanwhile, I'm still working the balance.

Being back at work has given me the challenge of trying to find time for my own projects. The techniques I've learned about have really helped me keep things rolling, but I'd love for things to progress faster. Being on sabbatical had different challenges... it was more getting myself motivated and developing self-discipline.

Re-entry after the sabbatical

The last day of the sabbatical

Today is the last day of my 3 month sabbatical. It's been very relaxing, and it definitely recharges your batteries. On Monday, I return to the corporate world. Now, I pause and reflect on some things I've accomplished, discovered, or figured out during my 3 months off...

It's a really nice break mentally. Your life is a lot simpler when you aren't required to be anywhere at a particular time. You have no bosses telling you what to do, and no organizational things you hafta worry about. My alarm clock broke about a day into the sabbatical, and I haven't had one in my room since. When I wake up, I don't know what time it is until I boot up the computer. I usually wake up around 8-9 AM on my own, but not being jolted awake is very therapeutic.

I feel like my capability to take !@#$! is a lot higher. If you asked me a month into the sabbatical about going back to work, I would tell you I dread it with all my soul. Right now, although of course I'd prefer to not need to go back, I feel OK with it and that I can handle it. I think even a 2 week vacation isn't enough; you aren't able to completely unplug. A 3 month vacation where you're working on something also doesn't really cut it. The ability to not have anything on your mind, and the ability to work on whitespace for an extended period of time is really cleansing for my mind.

One thing I was able to accomplish was cleaning out an extra bedroom and making it a home office. I live alone, and I used to do all my work in the family room on the couch with an IKEA laptop desk. A couple months ago I packed up the pile of books that were on the desk and shipped it off to Half Price Books. I now have a nice desk that faces out the window that I work from. I still would like to "pimp my home office" sometime (maybe add a fridge and a tea maker, maybe a sound system so I can work to some classical music?), but just having a nice space with a window really inspired me. Plus I would keep my laptop there, so when I woke up in the morning it would be the first place I'd head... and it'd get me started on my day fast.

I discovered the Pomodoro technique, which helped me overcome my natural weak points. I tend to not want to focus on one thing at a time, jumping around to do other things. I do this because I'm a curious person, but also because I tend to doubt myself and wonder if what I'm doing really is going to help the big picture. But setting a timer and requiring yourself to 25 min with no distractions was really effective for me.

With this technique, I feel more confident that I can continue to work on the ultimate goal of financial independence while working in the corporate world. I can set aside 25 min of my time daily to advance my projects. My home office is a nice place to work now. Panera's are the best place to work (outside of the 11-2 lunch rush), with ample space, free soda refills, and a nice environment. Barnes and Noble and Borders now offer free wifi and are great places to work too. Starbucks also has free wifi now if you buy something with their gift card, and there's of course one on every corner. I was able to figure out what to get at these places now, since I don't drink coffee and I don't like Panera's food all that much... I get a iced or hot tea, with milk and sweetener. With all that, I can easily set aside a chunk of time to move forward with my projects.

I'm OK working on my own. One concern I had was if I would miss the human interaction with my co-workers. And honestly I don't (nothing against them, they're great to hang out with). I have friends who are entrepreneurs and corporatepreneurs, and I have lunch with them. I figureed out that my company IM system links with AIM, so I was able to keep in touch with my good friends. I definitely see less people than at work, but it's the equivalent of working at a small company.

The burn rate is real. Usually I take my paycheck, pay off all my bills, and deposit the rest into savings. For the first time, I had to do it backwards... figure out how much my bills were, pull that amount out of my savings, and pay my bills. That was quite a shock to the system watching my savings account dwindle like that. Usually a bad month was when there was nothing going into savings. This just made me want to have a good cash flow in from another source before quitting my day job. For me, having my day job fund my ventures is still a pretty good model.

So on Monday, I rejoin the corporate world. It's been a great 3 months. Hopefully the next time it'll be for good!

The last day of the sabbatical

Hitting 4 hours a day - with the help of a tomato

I blogged earlier about how I was struggling trying to reach my goal of 4 hours of good work a day. I'm happy to report that the last two weeks have been very productive and I've gotten to 4 hours a day!

I went over the tipping point with the help of a technique I read on a blog... I would love to give the kudos, but I honestly can't remember where I got it from. It's called the "Pomodoro Technique" (after looking into this technique some more, I discovered pomodoro means tomato. You'll hafta check it out yourself to find out why it's called that).

In a nutshell, you basically set a timer for 25 minutes (one Pomodoro). You start the timer, and you have to work on one task for 25 straight minutes. If you stop and do something else, you have to start the 25 minutes over. If you're tempted to do something else, you should just write it down, then decide if it's worth it to start over. You must stop at the end of the 25 min, and take a 5 or 30 min break (depending on how many you've done already).

The technique is great because it makes you focus on one task; as I mentioned in previous posts, I have a hard time doing that. But I like that it recognizes distractions occur, and it has you write down the distraction so you can get to it during your breaks. Or you combine them together to form a whole 25 minute session. The forced 25 minute session (technically you're not allowed to go over) also gives you some sense of urgency to get your task completed so you also are inspired to be efficient.

I used this method to tackle important tasks that I procrastinate on. I procrastinate because the task appears too big to tackle, or tasks where I feel some self doubt on. For instance, as I mentioned before, I hired a programmer to help with the latest NOTtheBookStore.com. His part is done, but I have a lot of things I still wish to change on the site. Taking one look at the code floored me. But I set my iPhone to 25 minutes one day, with the goal to figure out how to change the design of the front home page. I ended up figuring out how to do it, and along the way learning about organizing functions, object oriented php, css, and why Internet Explorer is a pain in the ass for web designers.

I relax the forced 25 minute rule... if I need to keep going I do. I know I'm not motivated by deadlines as much as normal people, and the bigger issue for me is getting going and staying going. I tend to doubt the "big picture" when I dig into things, so when things are moving and I don't have that problem, I want to keep it going!

So with two weeks and counting on my sabbatical, I'm starting to hit max productivity. This is a great learning because once I go back to the "Corporate" part of my Corporatepreneurship, I know I can do 1-2 hour chunks after work and keep up the "preneurship" part.

Hitting 4 hours a day - with the help of a tomato

End of the first sabbatical trimester

It's been a little over a month since the sabbatical started, so about 1/3 of the way done. Here are a few of my thoughts/impressions at this juncture, and some updates:

The day goes by really fast. The first week or so, it was because I would wake up, read up on my fantasy leagues, play some Mario Kart Wii... But since then, I haven't watched any TV,  played any video games, nor sat around wasting time during the day, and a below average amount during the evening. Granted, the reason for that is because the Milwaukee Brewers fell out of the playoff race and the fall TV season hasn't started yet, but it goes to show that even when you're not wasting time, the day goes fast.

I set a goal to get 4 hours of business related work done a day. I'm still struggling very hard to get there... I'm still at 2-3 hours. I discovered that my house is not conducive to getting my work done, because it's a mess from lack of maintenance since I've been living there the last 8 years. So I've spent a good amount of time fixing it up, with the latest project decluttering (4 bags to Goodwill last week) and painting the kitchen. I want to make "pimp my home office" the next project. I figure if I can make my office an inviting place to work, it'll get me to 4 hours a day a lot easier. Right now I'm compensating by going to Starbucks, Caribou Coffee, Panera, and trying to discover new places to work. I still plan on going to these places to work, but the home office might get me the incremental hours I'm looking for...

The biggest learning for me is to focus on one thing at a time. It's REALLY hard to do that. I'm a divergent thinker, lots of random ideas and thoughts I like to chase. It is one of my strengths, but I do need to hunker down and focus if I want any of those ideas to take off! So I've changed my line of thinking. My original goal was to start 3 ventures, to get failures out of the way. Now I'm going to focus on one project, NOTtheBookStore.com, and then with any leftover time in my 4 hour a day goal, I'll work on other things.

Overall, this has been a great experience. It's been a great mental break from corporate life. The work I do for my own ventures doesn't feel that much like work... it's more getting over fears. I think because of that, I'm not mentally drained at the end of the day like I am from work. Plus not having to fight traffic helps too. In the next "trimester" of my sabbatical, I hope to get to 4 hours of work a day or more, really driving NTBS, and making my house a place I love to work at.

End of the first sabbatical trimester

1 week into the sabbatical

I'm now one week into the SEEF3M... one of the objectives was to feel what being an entrepreneur was like. I've definitely accomplished that:

• At night, I can't wait for the morning to come so I can get up and work on stuff. Slightly different than my day job.
• It's really easy to just let the day go away... It's amazing how fast a day goes! I find myself working maybe 2-3 hours a day of real work, which was discouraging to me until I figured that at my corporate job, that's about how much real work you do too. But through Toodledoo, I'm trying to get myself more efficient and accomplish more in a day.
• My main project, NOTtheBookstore.com, is in the middle of selling season for the fall semester, and it's going pretty slow. I'm barely breaking even on revenue with all of the marketing costs I spent on it. So that's led me to freaking out that I'm not getting a paycheck and wondering how I'm gonna make money. I guess just like an entrepreneur eh?

If you asked me today how I'm feeling, I would be thinking "Thank god I have a real job to go back to" instead of "this freedom is great." Last week it was the latter, but a little dose of reality today. I'm doing some traveling over the next couple weeks, but still plan on doing some work each day. Hopefully I can work on getting some new projects going and get re-encouraged again!

1 week into the sabbatical

And so it officially begins...

The three month leave of absence begins as of tomorrow. I think the first order of business will be to do a renewal of my goals... starting from high level to what I want to accomplish in my 3 months, down to what I want to accomplish today.

One thing I really would like to get right is to get a system working that allows me to do the "GTD (Getting Things Done)" concept... I'm a scattered thinker, so having this method buttoned up would allow me to know exactly what to do when I feel like doing something else for 10 minutes. Right now I tend to check the stock market, play Mario Kart, and see how many people have read this blog (not many if I don't post new entries). I've struggled with many different methods; an iPhone ap (Toodledoo), Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Excel, and iPrioritize. I've read tips on how to use Outlook, Gmail, etc. I think I have a couple of issues: 1. I don't take the time to maintain my GTD list, and 2. I haven't found the right tools yet. If anyone has tips, I'd love to hear them!

And so it officially begins...

Other's responses to my SEEF3M

So I've had a chance to tell a few co-workers and friends about my upcoming leave of absence. Of course they ask "What are you planning to do with it?" And I test the waters out by saying:

"Make enough money so I don't hafta come back."

I usually use this one as a gauge on what conversation to have with the person. There are two responses:

1. Ha ha. Better go buy a lottery ticket!
2. Awesome... what ideas do you have?

People who answer #1, I say "Yup, I plan on buying a lottery ticket my first day off!" And then I have the "I'm gonna go on a roadtrip, enjoy life, and it's something to do when I'm still single" conversation.

People who answer #2, I tell them about notthebookstore.com, and my thinking that you hafta fail 10 times before you hit something, so I want to get 2-3 failures out of the way during the 3 months.

It's been really interesting talking to people type #2. There are more people than I imagine who Corporateprenuer... i.e. have some sort of business on the side, or have the desire to. One guy told me all about the stuff that his entrepreneur wife does, owning franchises and stuff. He also made a point to tell me that it was great that I was doing this.

One really interesting response was from my dad. I brought up the idea to him a month ago (I haven't even told him I've already discussed this with my boss). In a "why are you doing this to me" tone of voice, he said "Why would you want to do that in this economy? I don't think it's a good move." He was almost hurting for me, which is pretty frustrating because when I'm hurting, the only person that needs to be hurting is me. And I'm not even hurting. Guess that's parents for you. Well, I haven't brought up the subject since... I probably won't until everything's official.

So, in a nutshell, everyone has been supportive except for one person... and he'll live, I'm sure my sister and I have done worse things to him in the past. The most meaningful support and encouragement I've gotten (other than my co-horts in this blog) has been from Jason Cohen of A Smart Bear blog and Adam McFarland (his blog here), because the vision is to be in their shoes someday... and it's nice to know there are people out there who get it.

Other's responses to my SEEF3M

More on the leave of absence... SEEF3M

I've given my 3 month leave of absence a name... It's gonna be called "SEEF3M" If that doesn't make sense to you, check out this previous post.

Yesterday was the first time I had a "oh my god what have I done" moment. I had just had a couple friends over for a BBQ lunch and they had left. I suddenly felt very unproductive and unsure of whether I wanted to go through with this. I think it was because I was left alone after a good time with friends. My second biggest fear for the leave or entrepreneurship in general is that I will go stir crazy from the lack of human interaction (the biggest fear of course is losing all my money and not being able to afford a place to live).

I took today off as a vacation day (so a traditional "SEEFAD") and am now sitting in Caribou Coffee. I'm feeling much better about the decision and am looking forward to it again. Things are moving forward with the website (I just hired my first programmer!) and I'm excited to work with him.

More on the leave of absence... SEEF3M