Welcome back! I decided to try something new this week and not write this post at 1am. It’s a nice feeling.
Enjoy!
This week at work!
What I’ve been creating:
1. Freaking email signatures
Okay, the fact that this was a relatively huge accomplishment is ridiculous, but an accomplishment nonetheless.
My goal for this week was to organize and execute on my never-ending list of Asana tasks (more on this later). One of the first things I tackled on this list was the task to create Hapday-branded email signatures for the team.
This really was not a hard thing to accomplish. There are tools that literally create it for you in a matter of seconds. However, the combination of the lack of formatting capabilities within Gmail, plus difficulties actually getting the signature to each team member, plus multiple change requests being made after the signature was finally sent out to everyone resulted in it being a multi-hour project.
The moment it was finally finished was a glorious one.
If you want to see the finished product, or you want to talk to someone about scaling your business in the US, send me an email: dana@hapday.co. (Make sure to mention hedgehogs at least once in your message and I’ll make sure to get you a special discount code for a free high-five with the purchase of one (1) 6-month business development contract.)
2. An Asana project that doesn’t result in generalized anxiety and acute insomnia.
Asana is a project management tool that is supposed to help teams stay accountable, on track, and on the same page while completing projects at work.
It’s really pretty cool when it works well. Although my relationship with it started off strong, it quickly devolved into a rambling list of scattered thoughts, ideas, and vague “it would be good to do this…. sometime…”-esque assignments. None of that is effective for executing on projects quickly, clearly, and efficiently.
This week I finally bit the bullet and spent the time necessary to organize and structure the tasks in a way that made sense in my brain. It’s a huge relief to now be able to go into that project within Asana and know immediately what action needs to happen and where it needs to take place.
3. A “Services We Offer” deck
Because of all the publicity we’ve been getting during the past couple weeks (thanks to the immersion program and the multiple workshops and speaking events Hapday leadership has appeared at), there have been many requests to view a comprehensive deck of what services Hapday actually offers.
Unfortunately, the sales decks we currently have are largely outdated—largely due to the fact that things change every four hours around here (#startuplife). Fortunately, they have me! Dana The Person Who Does The Random Stuff That Needs To Get Done.
This project will be carried over into next week, but it was exciting to get started on something that will hopefully be viewed A MILLION TIMES by all the people we’re pitching our services to.
What I’ve been learning:
1. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. Similarly, sometimes you have to spend time to save time.
One word: Asana.
I had been pushing off organizing those tasks because I knew it would take up a large chunk of time, and I felt like I didn’t have a large chunk of time to spend on it. Because you have to focus on the fire in front of you that needs to be put out, right?
Unfortunately, all this accomplished was the management of smaller fires while shoveling fuel into a very large forest fire that was directly behind me.
To an extent, though, that’s startup life. Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do. But at some point, taking the time to take the time will save you dividends in the long run.
2. It still counts as solving a problem even if you have to ask customer support for help.
We’ve started using a new tool for emailing, and we’ve been running into some issues with getting it to work how we need it to work.
After spending much time and effort trying to figure it out, I finally called support and asked for help. Surprise surprise, they told me the answer and 30 seconds later it was working the way we needed it to work.
Lesson learned: sometimes you should just swallow your pride and ask.
3. Did the NYC tech ecosystem just break up with its manipulative ex? Because it is t h r i v i n g.
If there’s one thing I love in this world, it’s seeing people come together in community to support each other in working towards a common goal.
Earlier this week, I got to attend a meeting with representatives from various accelerators, incubators, and other initiatives driving innovation here in New York. The meeting was held in an office in freaking World Trade Center 3. My thoughts were equally split between “What the heck am I doing here,” “I don’t belong here,” and “Holy crap this is so cool,” for the duration of the meeting.
Seeing these leaders come together to discuss common goals being worked towards from different angles is really cool. Everyone shared a little bit about who they are, what they’re doing, what they can give to the community, and one ask from the community. I’m honored to be here to observe, interact with, and learn from these inspirational humans.
This week in New York City!
The unfortunate truth is that I’ve been slacking in my exploration of the city.
The coolest thing was being in the World Trade Center. The dumbest thing is that I got more than a little lost because I didn’t understand how my new subway line works.
People are really into Halloween here. I feel more homeschooled and Christian than I ever did at home during Halloween.
The coffee shop three doors down from my apartment has mugs large enough that even Lorelei Gilmore would be impressed.
This week in Praxis!
Our Monday workshop was one of the best I’ve been a part of since starting Praxis. We were joined by David Perell, host of the North Star podcast and essayist extraordinaire.
He showed us his process for creating quality longform content in a fraction of the time it would take a normal person to create, and it was seriously awesome. The Praxis blog has an awesome write-up of the workshop that you can read here.
David’s writing process relies heavily on the vast database of notes he’s taken on all the content he’s consumed. He’s able to create these masterpieces by consuming content he’s interested, taking quality notes, and then stringing them together to create one cohesive document.
I had three takeaways from this session:
1. Start taking better notes. (And, start consuming better content on a regular basis.)
2. Stop thinking of a 10,000 word article as 10,000 words. Think of it as 10 1,000 word pieces strung together. Bam, no longer overwhelming.
3. David suggested that writing is like running. Running doesn’t necessarily get easier the more you do it. However, if you can teach yourself to love the process, and you’re consistent at it, that’s when progress happens.
As always, thanks for reading. See you back here next week for the first weekly update with double digits (time flies and it’s freaking me out).
Have a blessed week and happy Sunday!