The most useful form of patience is persistence

Covid-19 has no borders and is spreading at lightning speed. In these times of crisis and confinement, patience is essential. The eminent leader of Indian nationalism, Mahatma Gandhi, known for promoting nonviolence compares the act of waiting to a fight: “To lose patience is to lose the battle”. Leo Tolstoy, the Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time, known for “War and Peace” compares patience to a warrior: “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time“.

Today, I was reading “3-2-1”, the weekly newsletter from James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits. There was an insight connecting patience and persistence which I found very appropriate.

“The most useful form of patience is persistence. Patience implies waiting for things to improve on their own. Persistence implies keeping your head down and continuing to work when things take longer than you expect.” — James Clear

Patience, persistence and positivity are the three keys to living better. It’s the easiest way to reach your goals and succeed! Life is a journey and you cannot rush success. This is true in all areas of our lives, even more so when you are a start-up entrepreneur.

It has been several months since I provided any status on the progress of To-Do Studio. I know that many of you are eagerly awaiting the Beta version of the product. Your patience will soon be rewarded. Me and my business partner, we keep our heads down and keep working even if there is a pandemic and things take longer than expected. Less than ten weeks to wait. Soon we will announce the Beta program.

Enjoying the journey

It’s been eight (8) months since I left my job to focus all my efforts on developing To-Do Studio. Fortunately for me (and my sanity), I really appreciate my entrepreneurial journey. Having fun to pursue your business project is a necessity for any entrepreneur. This is the only option to persevere in the face of adversity. And adversity, there is. At each stage there are issues that make the work longer and more difficult than expected.

For example, recently, the programming of multiple identity support (OAuth 2.0 authentication) was much more complex than we had planned. Since it is very common for an individual to have multiple e-mail addresses, whether for personal needs or work, our service had to provide the ability for users to associate multiple identities to their unique account. This support allows a user to find all the workspaces to which he collaborates, regardless of the identity with which he is known by teammates (personal email or email from the employer). This is important because To-Do Studio wants to provide a global view that includes all facets of your life. We want to avoid multiple ‘sign in’ and ‘sign out’ repeatedly between different accounts. Multiple identities within a single account is a feature not much found in competing products such as email, calendar, to-do list, kanban board, or Excel spreadsheet. One of the reasons for this absence is surely the fact that it is not easy to implement.

With my business partner Erik Renaud, we managed to overcome this complexity by constraining ourselves to complete one goal at a time and setting a measurable goal with a short deadline.

The importance of completing one goal at a time

For several months, my work has come down to front-end programming with the Vue framework and Vuetify design system. It is a long-term job that requires many hours of programming. Every week, I work around fifty hours to advance my entrepreneurial project. Choosing your weekly goal is very important. I make sure I work on only one goal at a time and I do not start working on a new goal until the previous one is completed.

Very rarely, I manage to complete my weekly goal. Fortunately, almost always, I managed to complete this goal in the course of the following week. At some point, in the process of realization, I had to split a goal which proved to be too complex.

Every day, I identify the three (3) important tasks that I must complete. I usually have two tasks related to personal goals such as fitness or taking care of my family and a third task that aims to advance my entrepreneurial To-Do Studio project. Again, I do not start a new task until the previous one is complete.

The importance of setting a measurable goal with a short deadline

Recently, I was reading the book “Touching the Void” written by Mountaineer Joe Simpson. He recounts the disastrous climb he made with Simon Yates of Siula Grande, a mountain of over 6000 meters in the Peruvian Andes. After reaching the summit, the expedition unfortunately turns into a tragedy when Joe Simpson fractures his right leg after a heavy fall against a wall. This situation is usually fatal for a mountaineer. Thus, during the descent, despite the help of his colleague Yates, unable to brake on such steep walls, Simpson ended up sliding over a cliff and was then suspended in the emptiness above a deep crevice. Seeing no other choice, Yates eventually cut the rope to save his own life, with Simpson falling into the crevasse. The book tells how, at the cost of superhuman efforts, Simpson will still manage to come out alive from the mountain after more than 3 days to crawl to base camp.

One of the important things I remember from the book is that, despite the pain and adversity, Simpson has managed to continue his journey by setting measurable goals with a short deadline. By crawling on the ground, he progresses by fixing a visible objective located less than a hundred meters in front of him, and, each time, giving himself less than 30 minutes to reach this target. Thus, firing with the strength of his arms and uninjured leg, for more than 10 kilometers, target after target, measuring his progress with the clock of his watch, slowly, he moves forward. This allowed him to keep the focus despite the suffering and delirium that inhabited him.

In any case, I cannot compare my entrepreneurial journey to what Simpson experienced. In my case, there is no suffering, no pain and the journey is pure happiness. However, I must recognize a similarity in the importance of setting measurable goals with a short deadline.

Create a real to-do list by focusing on “Today”

In this post, I explain why DayTickler allows to focus on “Today”. Why should you separate your “Today” list from the master “To-do” list of everything that need to be done?

“The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists — the shopping list, the will, the menu — that are also cultural achievements in their own right.”

Umberto Eco

“The list is the origin of culture,” said Umberto Eco in a fascinating interview with the magazine Der Spiegel  about his book The Infinity of Lists: An Illustrated Essay. It seems to be in the genes of human nature to make lists. Unfortunately, lists always end up being too lengthy and in which the significant items are too often hidden. Exhaustive lists are useful to document and catalog the culture of a society but are little use to list things to do.To-do lists invariably crop up when we have so much to do that we can’t memorize all in our heads. Which means that we end up with lists far too long for us to complete. A to-do list with 20 or 30 items is not only daunting, it’s depressing: why even start when there’s no way you will ever finish.

DayTickler solves this problem by allowing you to create a list for things to do today, right now. Pick three or four items off your to-do list that will make the most difference and schedule them in your “Today” list. The action to schedule does not necessarily implies a temporal dimension, you can plan to do something in terms of a place, for example, when you are in your car or at your computer.

Separating your “Today” list from the master “To-do” list of everything that need to be done is a clear incentive for action. The “Today” list lets you focus on what you must do today, while the “To-Do” list gives you a place to dump every little task you think that someday must get done.