21) RoT: Return on Time

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Introductory Remarks

Dear Vambracers —

In last week’s post, Alignment, I explored the importance of fundamental alignment in all that you do and the people that you do it with. I put forth a high-level alignment funnel that I think helps me structure how I think about alignment—and also which demonstrates the multi-layered nature of alignment. In order to enter into an aligned arrangement with some professional counterparty, I think you need to have some degree of internal alignment. And I also think deep internal alignment can take a lot of time to achieve—and I know I’m still a work-in-progress there. But I guess the framework provides the structure that permits continued reflection. Ya know? Okay, moving on!

Return on Time (RoT)

I mentioned this in a previous post (s/o Day by Day), but one of the biggest challenges thus far on the entrepreneurial journey has been figuring out how to build a constructive and productive daily rhythm and schedule that advances the currently-somewhat-amorphous objectives of the company. Obviously, my main near-term North Star is like being able to pay rent—and so to pay rent I need earnings—and to make earnings I need revenue—and to generate revenue I need customers—and so customer acquisition is primary piece of the equation here day-to-day.

But I think if I take a big step back, there are also non-business considerations in constructing a daily routine and schedule—that I think are still vital to maintaining my personal health and wellness, which in turn drive business performance, etc. And so when you layer in these additional considerations, I think my new focus has become thinking about the Return on Time (RoT) associated with every activity and the use of my time. And lately I’ve just been RoTting away. (Also, I now know what they mean when they say “time is money” because “Return on Time” pretty much is the same thing as “Return on Investment,” I’m just too bashful to assign any real economic value to my time right now.)

Some specific examples

• Yoga. A specific example of where I was consciously aware of RoT is yoga. I’ve been very stiff lately and immobile in a way that impacts my entire existence—and so instead of going for a walk or maybe sending some incremental email, I’ve been doing yoga. And the filter really has been that this is a hugely beneficial opportunity relative to time invested, and it’s worth me doing instead of the million other ways I could be spending my time. And so that was an initial, small-feeling breakthrough that helped me reorient my approach around time management and activity allocation from wake until slumber.

• Learning. This is a bit more amorphous, but there’s some non-client oriented learning that I want to start doing, and so I’m going to start doing that. I’d like to read a book about artificial intelligence to better understand its like academic underpinnings—and maybe build some high-level intuition there—and then I also want to stay in the habit of just doing things that might not have a clear return, but are like constructive and that I’m confident will have some return in the future.

  • Maybe this is a good time to put forth some corollary around, like, really the equation I’m adhering to is like constructive-potential relative to time-input. Like I’m constructing myself, and I’m constructing the version of me that builds a thriving and abundant and flourishing business, and in order to do that, I need to construct a version of myself that proffers knowledge and outputs some like organic compute and/or like organic social compute (so more like professional-intellectual charisma—[maybe socio-pute (actually I hate that—we’ll workshop it)]) that lets me attract, support, and deliver for clients—in a way that allows me to trade the same amount of time for an increasing amount of money over time (adjusted for inflation, of course). And so I think of “Return” very liberally right now to mean anything that is constructive to the version of myself that allows me to deliver for clients and also create the real or perceived sense of mastery and value (and ideally it’s like mostly real and not too much perceived—although I guess any lived reality starts with perception?).

  • Does that make any sense? Sometimes I just get obsessed with writing words that I think sound good and that make me happy, and I can put meaning on the back-burner. But that’s a me-problem!

• Reading. And then the last thing I’ll mention here that is actually pretty important to me is setting aside time throughout the day to read and take in fictional narratives (or non-fictional stories) that inspire and motivate me—and sort of push the creative boundaries of my mind and stuff. Because really I think of company-building as a creative pursuit, and I think of any creative pursuit as like an endeavor of social alchemy to turn fiction into non-fiction. Most recently I’ve been loving The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and so that’s been highly motivating and inspiring for me—and I want to keep finding those types of stories that really push me forward into the unknown with joy and confidence.

Side-note: 996 culture and performative hustle

One additional shoutout here, that I think relates to the above discussion, is that I think the rise of things like 996 culture is pretty horrible. I mostly understand its appeal. It’s natural to want external validation that what you’re doing is worthwhile and impressive—especially within the context of the startup world where, honestly, in all likelihood you’re actually not building anything worthwhile (and that’s just statistics, folks). And so, I think there’s a reasonable human desire to substitute real economic value creation (as demonstrated through reliable and recurring revenue and happy customers) with perceived hustle.

I also think it allows people to kind of avoid accountability and responsibility when it comes to effort-risk associated with any entrepreneurial pursuit. Like if I convince others that I’m working really hard, then I can convince myself that I’m working really hard—and then if things don’t work out, it’s not for lack of trying—because didn’t you see that we were in the office every Saturday? So how on earth could it be lack of effort if our entire #CRACKED team was grinding non-stop 6 days a week? So our lack of product-market fit just can’t be an effort problem. In fact it’s probably really just lack of readiness from the market. We were AHEAD OF our time, actually. All you normies enjoying life in your 5-day a week, 9-5 fiat prisons just wouldn’t get it. But maybe on our next venture we’ll change the world.

And [Luke again], I honestly just think that’s an immature and fear-based existence. It’s also the classic case of, if you’re really, truly working hard and flow-state-immersed in your work, then do you really need to tell people about it? Doesn’t that interrupt the flow? I don’t know, I think it’s just kind of pathetic, tbh.

That’s not to say I don’t think hard work is important—I do think you have to mitigate effort-risk as part of any entrepreneurial pursuit. But I also think that some degree of burnout is real. I think that there are diminishing marginal returns associated with continuous work. And I also think that there are creative limitations to being so “locked in” 24/7. I also think it’s just all a Bay Area perpetuation of performative work that is just silly and stupid.

That’s a big reason it feels so good to have my own company and to be doing my own thing—because I don’t have to do any performative work, which I think is sort of at least partly just a byproduct of any bigger professional organization where there is social value associated with perceived performance. But now I can just like do work that needs to get done, when I feel inspired to do it (relative to the constraints of when the customer expects it)—and I can just lock in and do things. I don’t have to tell people about it (although I guess I’m telling you about it right now).

I just think I spent a lot of time in the past like 6-9 months where I was super-grinding and really I don’t have much to show for it. So I’d rather be intentional about where I want to go with work-effort—and make sure that there’s some economic value associated with any work I do at this point (i.e., I’m not going to do anything work-wise unless I get paid, learning activities aside). And then I think I trust myself and I trust my upbringing and the intensity of my education and my like natural disposition and my desire to deliver real results and stuff—such that I’ll invest the required amount of work to achieve the appropriate outcome, without all the pageantry of 996.

And last thing on this general like work-relationship avenue, is that, I think, as someone starting my own company, I want to make sure that I mostly love what I do—which I do—and so then there’s like actual joy associated with “working.” And then also I think when it’s your company, it’s sort of an external manifestation of who you are, and so it’s hard to ever really turn it “off” even if you’re just thinking about stuff while on a run or whatever. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing—and I think to some degree it’s required to build something meaningful—but the point I’m trying to make is how do you assess 24/7-thinking through a 996-framework? I don’t know. Maybe this all sounds defensive.

But really all I’m trying to say is that performative hustle is compensatory and pathetic and usually distracts from the real purpose and value of hard work, which is to joyfully accomplish something really difficult with people that you think are awesome for people you think are awesome and to discover new frontiers of the self and advance the collective. You don’t climb Everest to tell people you climbed Everest—you do it to see if you can do it—and to become better in that process of boldly facing down the unknown and the real possibility of failure. Tweeting about every step you take I think is just a psychological cop-out and serves as downside-risk mitigation, really, for when you fail, to say, “well at least you can see that I really tried.”

Looking Forward

Figuring out my relationship with work within the context of being my own boss (a phrase that I hate btw) has been an interesting area of discovery thus far on this journey. I have so much time, and I have so many interests, and I think I’ve had to thoughtfully reflect on how to spend time and what guiding principles I can adhere to to help me structure my life. It’s an ever-evolving process, but one I’m joyfully traversing.

I hope you have a wonderful week! If you’re a 996-stan then more power to you! You go hustle with your cracked team! I believe in you!

Sincerely,

Luke