Previously On…

Your startup idea isn’t always your number one priority. Work pops up, family pops up, you get sick, you lose momentum, you get addicted to Reacher… whatever. Ideally, we minimize the number of lulls but removing them entirely is unrealistic. A better approach is to build a system to get back on track fast and decrease their impact. My favorite way to do this is what I call “Previously, on,” a callback to episodes of 24.

Here’s how it works:

Every time you finish a work session, hop onto Loom and create a 2-minute screen recording with you talking over it. Go through what you're working on, touch on why it's important and how it aligns with your longer-term goals, then lay out next steps. End with, ”Here's the first thing to tackle in the next session.” If you’re uncomfortable with Loom or talking to yourself (try it if you are, it’s great), make a Previously, On list in Notion or wherever you keep your tasks. The key is making it as easy and fast as possible to pick your work back up.

The other tool I’d recommend here is OneTab, a Christoph rec. You’ll likely have a number of tabs open for whatever you're working on. Click on OneTab and it’ll close them all, but save them to open up later. For example, I’ve been working on the new website flow, so I have a OneTab with the stuff that’s useful for me:

When I click restore all, they pop up.

So, you can watch your two minute recording, restore your tabs for your startup, and get back to work fast.

And yes, I do sometimes record my Looms in the Kiefer Sutherland 24 voice. Work can be fun.