Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
So much to do..so little time
Published on August 31, 2004 By Draginol In Business

On a non-busy week, I will work 6 days each week.  About 8 hours at the office when I get in near noon and then another 2 to 8 hours at home depending on how busy I am.

This week is busy mainly because I'm involved in more projects than I would expect. We need more managers, more developers, more graphics designers, more business development people, more IT people. We just need more people in short. But interviewing takes time I don't have either. And when it comes to hiring management level people, it's hard to find people who are realy sharp on the tech market, can do things on a shoe string budget, and have a good business background. So our management team is all working pretty serious hours right now.

Here is a typical day this week as an example (yesterdayish).

Time Activity
9:00a Wake up, shower, get dressed
9:30a Skim express email account for emergencies, check main websites
10:00a Eat breakfast, play with remaining home kid
10:30a Ride bike around neighborhood
11:00am Go to work
11:30am Do office rounds (go around and see how everyone is doing)
12:00p Lunch
12:30p Go through express email, answer easy emails.
1:00p Meet with large company about bundling one of our products
1:30p Check over forums on PoliticalMachine.com, try to help customers with tech support issues.
2:00p Radio interview regarding The Political Machine
2:30p Meeting with bank regarding purchasing new building
3:15p Meet with builders of new building
4:00p Check AI code in The Political Machine to see if AI is causing endorsement crash report.
4:45p Meet with IT team regarding WinCustomize v4 
5:15p Update Stardock websites for IconX, write news articles
5:45p Check contract status on Natural Desktop
6:00p Conference call with big company about licensing product (3pm pacific time)
6:30p Test Right-Click internal beta
7:00p Read through bwardell@stardock.com email (typically around 300 non-spam email per day)
8:00p Work with Mason on GalCiv 2 intro music
8:30p Check GalCiv 2 cut scene daily progress, make suggestions
9:00p  Go home
9:30p Eat snack, watch Tivo'd stuff, play with kids, tuck them in.
11:00p Remote desktop in and make sure all of the day's express email that don't require long answers are dealt with
11:30p Try out new build of Blog Navigator, go on JoeUser.com, make posts, respond to articles, etc.
12:00a Visit forum on Neowin, make posts/respones, etc.
12:30a Check out other non-Stardock websites
1:00a Do SDTV Video on DesktopX
1:30a Try to get people to know how cool DesktopX is on various sites.
2:00a Go through WinCustomize, monitor ratings on WindowBlinds skins, moderate some skins, etc., make posts, news items
2:30a Try out some new DesktopX widgets, report bugs found.
3:00a Be glad that GalCiv AI coding hasn't started since this is an easy day.
3:30a Read book before bed (reading Kingdom Come - super hero book)
4:00a Sleep (sometimes this is as early as 1am depending on the day)


Comments (Page 1)
2 Pages1 2 
on Sep 01, 2004
Thanks for posting my Schedule...kind of.
I completely understand you!

HP
on Sep 01, 2004
My goodness...I am tired just reading that. YOu better pencil inyour wife in there somewhere!
on Sep 01, 2004
And the kids..... reminds me of a song "Cats in the cradle....."
on Sep 01, 2004

Mind you, this is during the busy time.  My wife/ kids do see a lot of me. Particularly in the mornings (in the summer they usually come with me on the morning bike ride/walk.  So from 9am to 11am in the morning I see the kids quite a bit.

And when I come home, typically around 7pm to 8pm I am around them a lot before bed. And of course on weekends things are much more flexible. And they come to the office quite a bit.

on Sep 01, 2004
Maybe I am wrong but I suspect, on many levels, you enjoy being this busy...or I should say this productive. It has to feel good, even as it is also draining, to be building something. For the most part I see the schedule of a man moving things forward, building interest in himself and his company, and making sure the ship is running like you want.

Tiring maybe...but it must also be very rewarding or you would just stop doing it (unless you just don't know any better).
on Sep 01, 2004
when to you have time to be with your family???
on Sep 01, 2004
oh never mind... but with a schedule like that, when do you, you know... have non-work fun?
on Sep 01, 2004

I do enjoy my work. It's good to build things. And I do get to spend a lot of time with my wife because she's around most of the time in some capacity.

On Wednesdays, like today, I work from home entirely so the kids and wife are around the entire time.

on Sep 01, 2004
So you could shave another hour of time off of your sleep to buy the liscence to Master of Magic and make a sequel?
on Sep 01, 2004
before I worked here at Stardock my schedule was: Roll out of bed at 3:00PM, work on customer stuff till 6:00AM, go to bed. Repeat.
on Sep 01, 2004
Read book before bed (reading Kingdom Come - super hero book)


I love this book. I reread the collected graphic novel and the hardcover novel regularly.
on Sep 01, 2004
For fuck sake, do sleep with laptop between your legs?
Chillout dude :>
on Sep 01, 2004
Jeeez and I fuss about working 3 days a week............... I guess I'm just spoiled.......
on Sep 01, 2004
Just remember this the next time you call a developer lazy
on Sep 02, 2004
My life as a small software company CEO.

Wake up at 9:30am.
Pray.
Read my favorite websites.
Read my favorite newsgroups.
Read email.
Call customers.
Count money made.
Eat lunch.
Fire up my favorite C++ editor.
Play with my 8 month old.
Take a nap.
Read email.
Eat dinner.
Spend time with my wife.
Go to bed.

GOFF Concepts L.L.C.
http://goffconcepts.com




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