Day 1: In the face of uncertainty

A photo for the day

A single word can describe the theme of this first day: uncertainty. My biggest fears stem from the uncertainty of not knowing what challenges and successes will show up these next 90 days. This includes some of the most basic questions that a job would have easily answered. I’ve got a song that captures this feeling best:

And so, I’ve decided to spend the day planning as much as I can to establish some routine that will sustain me.

What are my working hours?

A 9-5 schedule is great for anchoring your schedule to things you’ll do before work, after work, and before bed. Without that anchor, it’s up to me whether I’ll be working 9am to 9pm some days and 10am to 2pm on other days. For now, I’ve decided to target the same 9 to 5 schedule since it also aligns my schedule with my employed friends.

How can I keep myself accountable with the goals I have?

Writing one of these every day is part of the answer. It would be pretty embarrassing to share a post saying “I scrolled on my phone all day” and sharing that with everyone I knew. I also don’t want to fall into the trap of working on projects without clear deadlines. To that end, I will be sharing goals I’d like to reach by some date publicly through these posts and share my progress towards those milestones as the deadline nears. I’ve also set up a pact with my friend where we’ll have to pay the other person if we miss our goals.

There’s also some other questions like what I’ll eat every day, where I’ll be working from, and how I’ll treat my weekends that I’m thinking about. Although I’m against having a fully planned out routine (see this post), it would help to have some structure that ensures positive progress on the days where I’m not feeling as motivated.

What I’m working on

A very common piece of startup advice is to solve your own problems. Why? One of the hardest parts of startups is finding customers to sell to. You’ve either built a product that no one wants to buy or you don’t understand where to find the customers who will pay. The easiest way to solve that is to build for yourself. You already know one person who will use your product and chances are, you already know people in a similar boat who could be your next customers.

As someone who’s learning how to play jazz piano, learning the chords by heart has been my biggest struggle so far. So my first endeavor is an app that helps me solve that. I have used Flutter for past projects, so that’s what I’m building in right now. I hope to release this to some Android beta testers by June 5, so let me know if you’re interested. Here’s a very early screenshot:

Beautiful, isn’t it?

That’s all for day 1. I’m still experimenting with the format and content of these posts, so please share any feedback you’ve got. If you haven’t already subscribed, consider doing so, and if you have, share this with anyone who might be interested.