The hardest thing for me was to not work myself to complete exhaustion. It took me a long time to recognise the importance of weekends and leisure time. It sounds completely obvious, but my ambition drove me to work more and more hours per week (making me less efficient!), and even if it didn’t feel like ”work”, it had its costs. Since I always worked jobs besides university, and university is basically free where I come from, I had some money laid aside that made it possible for me to keep my mind on the project. When we actually founded our company, and I quit my other job, we directly started with a big (for us at that time) B2B project that helped us fund our own projects.
I could have used the advise of being a lot more pragmatic, especially with personal projects. Nowadays, I try to focus my perfectionism on the core value proposition of a project, and write that value proposition down in order to refrain from perceiving some other feature as also belonging to it, and try to be pragmatic in all other areas. Maybe that approach can help you reach your goals faster as well.
It’s great that you mention that issue! No, I have no way of getting over it and I’m still struggling with it. It may help to get back to your/create a business model. What I’d like to try, though, is the approach presented in Stephen Wendel in “Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics”. My hypotheses is that after the whole team went through that process together, it should result in a clear vision/goal for everyone. I’m really interested in your thoughts and ideas on the issue, though. What have you tried already and what do you think could help?
I'll have to look that up, I'm not familiar with the author or the book. That said, I've found people will want to stick to their favorite thing rather than the most important. I think that's why having a leader of some type is important, but it's awkward if you're working together on somewhat even grounds (like a bunch of friends starting a business). I think having someone step up and making sure other people stay on track is important, but the problem is if you feel too much like a superior or useless management then the whole thing just becomes a horrible experience for everyone involved.What I’d like to try, though, is the approach presented in Stephen Wendel in “Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics”.