One Critical Thing I Stopped Doing Since Becoming an Entrepreneur

The thing I stopped doing is a bad habit I picked up early on—or maybe one I already had that got worse—working at various companies. It's a habit that's endemic to office life, but it has no place in a small company environment.

What is this bad habit I've gotten rid of—or that, at least, I’m trying so hard to get rid of?

Laziness.

I’m not referring to actually being a lazy person. Anyone who knows me probably thinks I’m the polar opposite of lazy. In fact, they think I should probably relax a bit more.

The laziness I'm describing is something that you see, and maybe even do, every day.

The emails that don't get answered.

The memos that nobody reads.

The meetings that go on forever because nobody has set an agenda or a purpose.

These lazy habits are often tolerated at big companies because everything moves at a glacial pace. Decisions are allowed to take days. Ideas are allowed to take months to execute. If emails don't get answered, there's always another day.

There's nothing wrong with taking time in and of itself. But taking too much time can foster lazy habits. After all, if time is not a truly precious commodity, then there is no big concern about wasting it. Why do in 30 minutes what can be done in 60? That's the sort of warped thinking I'm talking about.

This isn't endemic to one company; it's a widespread problem. And startups—where time is about as precious as the cash in your bank—are even more impacted by the effects of laziness . Time is a finite resource that's keeping your company alive. When you run out of time, it's because you've run out of money. And when you run out of money, you've run out of time. See?

When I first started Radiate, the biggest question investors asked most frequently was: What's your runway? In other words, given how much money you have in the bank, how long can your company keep operating? 12 months? 24 months? 36?

Because you are on such a time-sensitive trajectory, you literally can’t afford to be lazy. There is no time to sit around a "mission-less" meeting. If emails go unanswered, that's a cost. If you make a big expensive mistake, you've just eaten up more of your precious time.

Since starting Radiate, I've become a lot less lazy. I'm very efficient now. Meeting agendas get set. I don't show up late. Messages don't go unanswered for days. I try to be as precise as I can in emails so that there's less back and forth. I'm much more detail-oriented—god forbid I'm careless and it ends up costing us a lot of money!

Am I perfect at this? No. But I know that like many bad habits, it's a work in progress, and I'm moving in the right direction. This is one quirk I'm gladly shaking off.

And speaking of bad habits, check out this Radiate video in which business greats like Gary Vaynerchuk and Mellody Hobson talk about the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when raising money.

Entrepreneurial LinkedIn readers, I want to know: What did you have to stop doing when you made the switch from weekday warrior to scrappy startup founder? Let me know in the comments.

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