

Sacrifice - googletron
http://www.rdegges.com/sacrifice/

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andrewljohnson
The dual todo list, plus long term list of projects/writings/ideas under
separate headings is exactly what I do. It used to be a text file, now it's a
google doc.

I'll tend to manage my time by email a lot, but then if I get beyond inbox
zero, I'll process certain things I'm lagging on into my todo list. A lot of
my email also files into labels for certain business functions or
partners/clients, skipping the inbox, but remaining unread so I can do it in
blocks.

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awaechter
Interesting topic! From my own experience you indeed lose everything by not
making clear cut choices. But "sacrifice" means you already consider the
project you are giving up as a part of yourself. For me the best way to stay
focused and in the same time not being frustrated is to set yourself deadlines
on the projects you are on and avoid projecting yourself elsewhere until they
are reached.

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thelarry
I think something interesting and related is the ability to sacrifice personal
activities for a project. I've tried working on projects with many friends
that just could not sacrifice part of their weekends with their girlfriends to
do work. Or they were "too tired" after their day job to work on side project
but could play video games. Some people won't even sacrifice some sleep!

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aytekin
Sacrificing sleep is probably worst kind of sacrifice. When you do not get
good sleep you are losing a lot of efficiency the next day. So, it is not
worth it most of the time.

But there are cases when you should lose sleep. If your service is down you
must sacrifice sleep and keep going until it is fixed. I have done my share of
that.

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PaulHoule
One thing you have to look at is synergy. Open source projects can be business
projects.

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josscrowcroft
This was certainly the case for Open Exchange Rates [0] – it was a successful
open source project for a year before life and commitments forced me to either
shut it down or business it up.

I took the latter path, and now it allows me to keep working on it full-
time... but I did have to forcibly sacrifice (I say _scupper_ ) some other
projects, which I have no doubt would have been equally successful.

[0] <https://openexchangerates.org>

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PaulHoule
Hey joss, I'm really interested in markets for data like the one you're
running... Let's talk!

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josscrowcroft
Hey Paul! Couldn't see an email address in your profile but you can reach me
on joss@openexchangerates.org :)

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Gallefray
A pretty good approach. I need to start doing this. Thanks for posting! :3

