Inspired by a great post by Brad Feld about how he structures his day, we decided to ask a number of folks in the Boston startup community a simple question: How do you work? We’ve heard from Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital and Tim Rowe of the CIC. Here’s Jeff Fagnan of Atlas Venture. Full disclosure: he’s an investor in our parent company, Streetwise Media.
Huge caveat: Despite best efforts, I still struggle with work/life balance, sleep cycles, procrastination and remaining present.
My overarching goal is to create a schedule, which embraces the constant shifting of priorities yet also, reduces variability. I realize this objective sounds like an oxymoron but so is my life. The end result schedule is two tails of consistency sandwiching a chubby middle of controlled chaos.
Morning tail
4am – Wake time: four espresso shots, handful of raw almonds, twelve ounces green juice that smells and tastes like a moldy running shoe.
4:30-5:30 – Work time: email, board work, etc.
5:30–6:45 – Sweat time: bike on Cycleops trainer while watching on demand (currently addicted to Game of Thrones).
6:45-8:00 – Kid time: breakfast, finish homework and walk to school.
Chubby middle
8:00-5:00 – Every morning Amy Zengo and I work together to optimize the day’s priorities. Amy is stellar and I couldn’t manage without her as a partner. Any given day can change quickly and often – i.e., Patrick Morley, CEO of Bit9 calls with an issue around the current financing round; my partner Chris Lynch texts from the conference room and wants me to come in to meet an compelling entrepreneur; my partner Fred Destin pops in with Sravish Sridhar, CEO of Kinvey for a quick chat on inside sales best practices; David York, a close Limited Partner calls to do an informal back-channel reference on a GP; Nivi, founder of AngelList ships over some screen shots of new product functionality and is looking for immediate feedback.
I have learned to embrace the dynamism rather than fight it. Every day is different and after twelve years in venture I am still on a steep learning curve.
Evening tail
5:00–7:00 – Kid time: soccer (I coach the Lawrence School Coyotes), homework (I’m great in math but struggle with spelling) and other projects like gardening or ad hoc science experiment.
7:00–9:30 – Connect time: drinks and dinner with entrepreneurs, portfolio execs, partners or other relevants. I prefer drinks and dinner meetings to breakfast. It’s less rushed and as Oscar Wilde quipped “only boring people are brilliant at breakfast.”
9:30-10:30 – Work time: email and west coast calls with ESPN as digital wallpaper.
10:30 – Calm time: rooibos tea and supplements (fish oil, multi vitamin, resveratrol, Coenzyme Q-10).
Rinse. Repeat.
