Sunday, March 29, 2020

Colorado Startup Life: Week 81

March 22 to 28. I'm optimistic, because I have to be. I think about death and injuries a lot. This was the second week I spent working from home. Unfortunately I don't think my productivity was as good as last week. It's harder to know what's going on. Where as normally when two people talk in the office, another two might be nearby and join in the conversation and then each person goes off and tell another person what's happening, so now eight people know. However, when everything is being forced to happen remote, two people talk and make a plan, and that's kind of it. Those incidental conversations aren't really happening as much. So if you want to know what's going on, you have to dig and pry a little more than normal.

On the flip side, wow am I in a fortunate situation! We're set up to work from home quite well. Because of a couple government contracts we count as essential, and I'm excited about that for probably different reasons than you might expect. It's not about the revenue that is coming in or the fact that we're still testing our product, it's that I have something to do right now that gives me purpose. I'm spending plenty of time reading news articles about the Covid-19 pandemic, plenty of time watching The Office, and it's nice to be able to sink my brain into a cool project right now that still adds value. I told my boss this past week, even if we do get shut down, I want to keep working on this stuff because it gives me something to do. I've even offered to take a pay cut or forgo my salary for awhile. I'm confident that if my company survives the next five years, I won't have any basic financial worries.

If you haven't read the book "Drive" by Daniel Pink I recommend it. In fact, I might reread it while I'm homebound. So often in life the focus is on more money, but he points out that after our basic needs are satisfied, we are looking for autonomy to do our jobs as we see fit, mastery of our profession, and purpose to make the world better in some way. I'm in a good spot financially being a saver and working for the last ten years, and so I really don't want to lose the purpose aspect of my career right now. I have plenty of autonomy and mastery, but if we had to shut down and I was not allowed to work, oh that would be tough for me now.

Running was good, 43 miles I think? I ended on Saturday with an 11 mile long run, my longest pure run in over a year. My ankle is sore right now as I write this. The 22nd, Sunday, I spent 8 hours and did 14.5 miles on skis with M for this 25th birthday. Conditions were not great so we turned around at 11,100 feet of elevation. I think I'm going to try and hover around the 40-45 miles per week mark for the next month or so and hopefully my ankle will rise to the challenge and not be sore as frequently as it was this week.

Predictions for the coming week: The USA passes 250,000 Covid-19 cases on Friday, and 5,000 deaths on Thursday. But honestly my predictions have been too optimistic and so there is a good chance we pass those milestones before then.

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