Focus and short term goals

I've spent most of the last two weeks on two things:

Picsolve (a portfolio company which I'm a director of); and
Coding the wireframes of Woffee's website v0.5

Picsolve has some really interesting developments in the pipeline over the next 1-2 years. And I'm really excited about the teams energy on delivering some great product development (I won't spoil the surprise here...). And with the right degree of focus I'm confident they'll execute the plan well - a message which I've delivered regularly at various meetings.

On my second task, I don't feel I have progressed in the short time frame as well as I should have done. Coding is definitely a development area for me. And while I enjoy the challenge and learning new things, it is harder to do this whilst spinning other plates at the same time. Equally it is difficult to know how much progress I should make each week.

I feel like I've made some good progress in some of the coding areas, but in my own mind I am pretty sure behind plan. I attribute this to a lack of focus on a single activity, and not setting clear short term goals.

What the last two weeks has reaffirmed in my own mind is the need to focus on a few activities and to set some clear short term goals (e.g daily / weekly). I find it interesting that the first part of this message is something I've been delivering to Picsolve, but am now truly seeing the importance of firsthand.

So this week I've set myself three clear tasks to get done, regardless of other distractions. Let's see how we go...

In many ways one of the things I'll miss most in pursuing my own start up is my role with Picsolve which has lasted 4 years. Next month is my last board meeting at Picsolve and I wish Jeff and the team all the success for the future. I'm sure they'll do really well.