Avoiding the Train to Crazy

My first OpenView blog! This is exciting – almost as exciting as expansion stage venture capital 🙂

So…going into this week…it felt like I was starting out on a train riding the rails of madness on a destination to crazy… Walking into the office 7AM Monday morning, it seemed as though there were about a couple dozen objectives I needed to tackle that were comprised of about 100 initiatives that were made up of 1000 tasks. Uggh…

In reality, this wasn’t the case. With our business development services, we spend a lot of our time helping our portfolio companies utilize the growth capital we are providing in focused manners targeted against strategic goals and initiatives. Many times, it can feel like there about a million things that need to be done at our portfolio companies (and there probably are often times). However, maintaining focus, working as a team, being organized (utilizing management systems like scrum help) and being calm and decisive (and knowing how to prioritize) help during times when things may feel overwhelming as an individual. For some reason, the focus I try to help our portfolio companies with I was beginning to lose sight of as I began my week.

Luckily, as we began our planning session Monday morning our team helped one another narrow in on exactly what needed to be accomplished to help our portfolio companies and how we were going to do it.

Fuller Fact: Focusing on the stress and daunting amounts of work ahead of you impede your ability to execute and focus. Staying calm, prioritizing work, being organized, staying focused and getting input from others will usually help you see your way through. You don’t want to continue riding that train to crazy…