A Hour a Day

A while back I read an article about Markus Frind and how he initially started Plenty of Fish. I am sorry that I can’t remember exactly where the article was, but inc.com has a good profile on him. Anyhow, I read that initially he had a lot of trouble getting started, basically getting focused. In order to overcome his problem of not being able to focus, he forced himself to spend at least an hour a day working on the site. Eventually it got to the point where he would find himself spending more than an hour working on it. Fast forward to today, this guy makes about 10 mill a year from online advertising on plenty of fish.

The more and more you work in the corporate arena, the more you will realize that you don’t want to be there. After about year two of working after college your life will begin to feel real monotonous, that’s when the creativity starts to take place. I remember at my first job, it got to a point where me and a few co-workers were so bored we would just brainstorm crazy ideas. Every day someone would come in with an idea of something that would be the next big thing, or some idea that we could really be passionate about working on, rather then coming to work and taking part in corporate servitude. Even though we all had great ideas, no one ever worked on them. The closest I got to working on an idea was when me and one of my-coworkers decided to develop this web-site that revolved around strip clubs, in retrospect it was actually a good idea. We were heavy into it for about a month, then we just stopped. A few months later I asked my friend why we stopped, to which he replied, “dude, we’re too comfortable”.

I definitely understand his argument, but lately I must say I haven’t been feeling so comfortable. I get extremely bored quickly, and I have noticed a similar situation occurring at my new project just like my last project. I have a friend that works on this new project and we spend a lot of time talking about crazy creative business ideas, yet once again we never implement them. I will brainstorm out an idea, spend days and weeks thinking about how great it is and never do anything. Why? I don’t think its because of comfort, I think its because the hardest thing about starting a new idea is actually starting.

Actually starting the implementation phase of a good idea takes discipline and commitment, I tend to lack both. This past week I have decided to start taking the Markus Frind approach and devoting at least an hour a day to an idea or goal I have set for myself. I have numerous goals I want to achieve and business ideas I would like to implement, I’d say the hardest thing is figuring out where to start. This blog is actually one of my many goals, so is dropping some weight. For the past week I have been devoting at least an hour a day to each of those goals. So far it seems to be working pretty well.