The Back On Track SOP
Summer is the time for fun things.
We sat outside at a pizza place last night with the boys and the older one refused to eat pizza while the younger one ate everyone’s pizza and then ate a bunch of flowers off the plant next to our table when I wasn’t looking for good measure.
The pizza and IPA I had broke my “eat well during the week” plan, which, before boys, I was usually pretty good at adhering to. But it’s summer.
During the Habit Kangaroo days Trevor and I did a bunch of research on how people stay on track with things like financial plans and diets. The most effective for either was the “no two mistakes in a row” plan. Basically, if you have one bad meal - pizza and an IPA, for example - that’s fine. You just can’t have two bad meals in a row. So, breakfast the next day needs to be healthy.
It’s never the one bad meal that kills your diet, it’s the mental “dropping the rope” thing. One bad meal makes it easier to have two bad meals, which makes it easier to grab a pain au chocolate with your coffee next time and then you’re spiraling the wrong way.
Same thing works with your startup.
You’ve probably got startup goals for the summer and you’ve got to first acknowledge that those goals will be thwarted by pop up bbqs and trips to the beach or a brewery or a bike ride or whatever you like doing. And this is a good thing. But, this is where the Back On Track SOP comes in. It’s one of our simplest SOPs:
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The Back On Track SOP
If you miss a scheduled startup working session, fine. But you can’t miss two in a row.
Once you know you’re going to miss a session, write the script for how to start working during the next session. Then, schedule that script to be sent over email to you 30 minutes before that session is scheduled to start.
So, if you miss your Thursday session, and your next scheduled time to work on your startup is Monday at 7am, write something like:
“Today you’ll be finishing up the one person landing page you started last week. Here’s the most recent version (link), and you left off at the call-to-action. You were struggling with the language - should you describe the outcome “hire more people faster,” or what you’re taking away “never read another resume.” Build two versions today, one with each, and send to Calvin and Rebecca to get their take.”
This will remove the friction for starting.
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The problem with missing days is the lost momentum and break you give your subconscious from working in the background. This, hopefully, solves each.
Enjoy that bbq this weekend, but make sure you make a plan for your next session before you get into those ribs (or hydrangeas, if you’re my 1.5 year old).