And we’re back just after lunch with another episode of Alexis writing 750 words daily! Lily and I just had veggie chili from the soup place around the corner in efforts to staying warm while temperatures dropped to almost freezing over night. It’s cold! This spring sucks so far! What the hell?! A few noteworthy things today: ### I updated the UI for timestacks.co I only realized yesterday that I’ve been using my own little time-management software called “timestacks” for almost a year now. It’s exciting because I really wanted to know if the system and process I devised would work for me before launching it publicly. I hadn’t used timestacks for a while but now that getting stuff done is really important I have gone back to scheduling my time more rigorously and it looks like its working. In total I’ve completed more than 450 discreet tasks such as “Read Book X”, “Take a walk”, “Wrap up project Y”, “Write invoice for client B”, “Send proposal to prospect D” et cetera. 450+ tasks completed is pretty good I think and I have everything tracked on a day-to-day basis. The UI I built for myself a year ago was good enough to validate the functioning but in 2014 it’s important to also make it look good. I’m going to allow other people to join the platform soon. ### I updated the copy for timestacks.co Just because timestacks work for me doesn’t mean it’s obvious how they even work for anyone else. I went ahead and updated the public-facing part of the site and wrote/edited a few paragraphs that explain why, what and a bit of how timestacks have been working for myself. I haven’t finished writing this part and think a quick intro video will possibly do a better job communicating but it’s time well spent now to prepare making the app public soon. (No one is drawing a salary here, so morale is crucial to have everyone stay excited about the project. It’s especially important when you really can’t assume or force or expect anything from anyone you’re working with. Because it’s a startup everyone is responsible. However, because no one is paid, no one can be held responsible.) ### We kicked off the day with the team with a good standup I got in to The Farm early enough, around 9:30, to prepare my day and prepare the standup meeting. Staying in touch with the team on a daily basis makes it easier to feel connected and to feel in control in an environment where everything is up for grabs at any point. I really enjoy seeing everyone’s faces at least once every day and we are doing a good job keeping things nice and short in respect of everyone’s time. I’ve always been a person to talk a lot and I’m learning to keep myself shorter than usual. I like giving context and rationale to what I say but I am learning that there is a healthy balance between relaying information clearly and rambling. ### Lily and I discussed a thank-you initiative and are going to plan a small get-together as well I was unclear about the types of events Adrian and Lily had been planning and considered saying “Thank You” to our first VC partners a priority. Lily filled me in that, for events, she was thinking of one “Happy Hour” where we get together the VCs we’re working with and one “Launch Event” that caters to existing VC partnerships, new VCs and startup founders. I added that the lowest hanging fruit would be to first set up an event where we say “Thank You” to the 6 or 7 people that have helped us launch the first set of data and Lily came up with a great idea: Instead of doing an event, let’s just send them a package of sorts with a thank you note. That’s nice and easy and doesn’t require everyone to come in at the same time. I think that’s a great idea and I think it’s easily implemented. The goal is to have the thank-yous go out by end of coming week. Today, for the rest of the day, I’ll be working on Code with Sandip and then hopefully I get a chance to work on our onboarding copy. I scheduled myself 45 minutes for todays words and I’m coming in at around 35 minutes so far. That’s good to know and I definitely think that giving myself the limits of time to finish my tasks has helped me accomplish more in less time with greater intensity and less procrastination. That’s it for today!