3 Startup New Year's Resolutions for 2018

2018 will soon be here, and this time I’ve decided to write down and publish my work-related resolutions for the new year.

It’s not vanity, it’s because research demonstrated this is the most effective way to be consistent with your commitments.

And since this time I definitely want to be consistent with them, I’ll do something more: I’ll write down how I plan to accomplish them. This is called implementation intention, and it is another science-based trick to reduce the large gap between intention and action!

1. I will learn something new

When we started Mindiply, about two years ago, I thought that my job would have simply been to be the ‘scientific consultant’. The science-guy who brings the knowledge from scientific research into our products, and maybe writes some articles here and there. How naive I was!

Of course, I ended up doing many other things: helping out with the SEO, SEM, content marketing, interviewing users and brainstorming new product ideas to name a few! Many of this thing I did for the first time and didn’t feel skilled enough. It’s not just that in a small team you must do multiple roles, it’s because in the early stages of a new business you have to be involved with every tiny aspect of it. It’s your creature, and you are the only one who can make it grow.

So, in the new year I’m not aiming to be a master of anything, but to continue adding steadily to my basic startup skills toolbox.

How will I accomplish this?

To make sure that action will follow intention, we’ve already scheduled a content-creation workshop with content master Tom Smith from Stom Content in January, where we’ll learn how to improve our blog writing skills. I’m looking forward to learning a lot!

2. I won’t lose sight of the big picture

Strategy first, I was told. Create a smart plan and then try hard to execute it. It’s easier said than done! I am one of the large group of people who naturally tend to focus on the short-term tasks instead of on the medium or long-term strategy. This means working mainly on the day-to-day tasks, with a high risk of forgetting what really matters for moving forward the business.

How will I accomplish this?

We felt this problem so much in Mindiply, and in the many other startups we interviewed, that we’ve actually built a tool to overcome it: it’s called I Am Why and it’s a strategy execution application where you can see all your plan, from strategy to tactics and weekly tasks, on the same screen. So what really matters in the medium and long term will always be where it must be: right there in front of me. No more losing the big picture again!

3. I will get things done sooner

When we start a new week, we tend to grossly overestimate the number of things we will be able to accomplish in just 5 days of work. It’s due to a bias called planning fallacy, and it affects almost everyone, Nobel Laureates included. As a consequence, I often start working on the most pleasant tasks, since there is plenty of time for that other stuff. And then on Friday, I have to rush like a Tasmanian devil to finish all that was left behind...

So, no more procrastination is my motto for the new year. If something is important, then I will do it immediately, even if this means doing something uncomfortable or delaying nicer but less important things.

How will I accomplish this?

Again, our tool I Am Why will help, because it makes you break down longer activities into smaller weekly tasks, and this helps in being more accurate in time forecasting. Other than this, it’s time to actually adopt a prioritization method such as the task prioritization decision tree or the Eisenhower matrix. Hey, I wrote an article about those methods months ago, time to practice what I preach!

And what're your 2018 resolutions going to be? Let us know at hello@mindiply.com