The App Collective Episode 33
A framework for working through painful seasons
Hello!
Welcome to another episode of The App Collective. This past week has felt like an entire year filled with a lot of heavy things. To be honest, life has been lifin'. Of course, at the time of writing this (Tuesday evening), it’s a full moon night. Of course it is.
Ever since I broke out of corporate and into my own business over a year ago, I have struggled with figuring out how to take time off. Wow, hello, full transparency time.
Last week, I needed to take Thursday and Friday as light work days. That meant I worked in the mornings only and cut out at around 11 or 12 pm to tend to some personal business. When I tell you my clients were so supportive, I could cry thinking about it. If you're reading this, thank you again.
This episode is about how to manage getting your work done when you aren't 100% and the framework I use in general but spelled it out for you to explain how I do it for this expressed purpose this week.
What's inside
Working through painful seasons
A slide from an app's media gallery
Working through painful seasons - a framework
Most of you reading this are either app dev owners or Shopify store owners or are in charge of teams that rely on you to keep the train moving through the station. So most of you have to work when things happen in your life.
Life threw me some curveballs recently. Luckily, I enjoy working, and I enjoy the work I do. I have always enjoyed spending my time working, as I appreciate the mental focus required and sometimes we all need a break from our regular thoughts. Amirite? I don't understand the mentality of working to live. My favorite day of the week is Monday because it's a clean slate filled with tons of potential to make a dent in my work. Can you relate?
I'm not suggesting that you should subscribe to hustle culture. This isn't a Gary Vee-driven story here. I feel like many of us are wired similarly in that work is fun. We get a lot of joy out of accomplishing things with our work. And a lot of you are incentivized to keep pushing. I've seen it with app devs who quit their day job with luck and a prayer and end up millionaires through a lot of consistency and hard work.
I was talking with a colleague this week who also had quite a week last week personally. They also have a lot of balls in the air, with people relying on them to move things to the finishing line with their work. And just like me, they were eager to return to work to get their head back in the game.
Before I get into the framework, I have been thinking a lot about Josh Allen, the quarterback for The Buffalo Bills (my team)! He has a lot of rookie or newer players this season to work with. They have played and won 2 games so far this season. In the first game, he carried the team on his back; in the second game, the team carried their own weight. Are you a leader who likes to make up for shortcomings, or are you a leader who can distribute the load and trust the process to work out even when there are weak links? I'm trying to learn how to be both. I just wondered if that was something you've ever pondered yourself.
The framework
Here's the framework I have adopted to be productive on my shorter work week last week and this week to make up for lost time. To be clear, this is kind of how I normally work regularly anyway, but I wanted to spell it out, especially when my life needs a tiny bit more structure where other parts feel out of my control. This works only for me because I don't have kids, and I'm not married. I can literally sit in front of my computer for 12 hours straight to make up for lost time, which is what I have done this week. Returning to the question above, maybe you can adopt the second game Josh Allen path, which is where I would like to get to eventually. Either way, I hope this gets you thinking more about how you structure your work day in terms of prioritizing tasks if you aren’t doing this already.
I start my day by writing out the projects that are outstanding to do. Yes, I still use a pen and a notepad. I like to visualize it and cross things out. I then break the projects into tasks and prioritize the tasks based on the importance of getting them done, the time I think they will take, and what else is going on that day. This can mean that I am breaking up projects into multiple days based on how I distribute the tasks if it’s a larger project. I have a loose idea of the timeline for a specific project to get done across 1-3 days, but I mainly focus on what tasks I will tackle that specific day.
I have to factor in how my brain works best, mixing up harder and longer projects/tasks with shorter, less brain-intensive projects/tasks. I also have a set routine in the morning and I have specific standing things that I do throughout the week that are factored in. I'm also super productive during the morning hours, with a lull around 2-4 pm, and I generally close out strong from the hours of 5:30-7:30/8 pm when I call it quits. I have given myself time to daze out to TikToks or joke around with my Lucky Orange friends on LinkedIn during those lull hours when my brain is telling me no more we need a break. But mostly, I'm fairly heads down, grinding away.
Whatever tasks didn’t get assigned to that day, get moved to the next day and we play Tetris again with what needs to get done based on the framework above.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
What do you do when you’re in a harder season to get your work done? Do you find that you are even more productive because it's a good distraction to dive into some fun work projects? Please leave some comments on the Substack online version - I'm genuinely curious how others work during personally tough times.
A Shopify App Store media gallery image
This is the first image on the app's media gallery. Don't ask me which app this is, as I will never remember where I found it. I'm glad they decided to leave their branding out so I can use it and not drag the app. But if this is the first image on your media gallery (in general, not specific to this app), some branding would be ideal to add to it - like a logo if you don’t already have that on there. The part that stuck out to me was the copy of the headline.
Sell More, and Better.
What does that mean? Know what I mean?
Okay, so I'm going to fix it. Sell More With Discounted Bundles. DONE. FIXED.
All of this is to say that your media gallery image headlines, especially on the first image, should be clear, explain exactly what the app does at a glance, and not look like word salad.
Well, I hope this was helpful to someone today. Let me know what you do during these seasons.
And if there are any topics you would like for me to cover in future episodes, let me know.
XOXO,
Gossip Girl
JK Deb
I can so relate to this post! From writing out my weekly to-do list on paper and crossing the tasks off when I get them done to work being a refuge from the insanity of non-work life sometimes.
Whenever I've got a lot of plates I need to keep spinning in my personal life, I always try to remind myself that I'm human and that from time-to-time the best I can do for work is going to be different based on the context of my life.
I draw from lessons I learned in a book I read 20+ years ago called The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. The fourth agreement is "Always do your best," but what your best today may be different from your best tomorrow because of what's happening in your lives at any given time.
Ruiz says we shouldn't beat ourselves up because what best looks like today is different from what our best will be at some other point. We aren't machines and it's OK that our best isn't the same every day.