I am experiencing on my own skin that first-time start-up founders face a number of difficult-to-crack challenges, especially since when I left a stable job with a salary attached to it.
Perhaps the two most important ones, letting aside the evident priority of building products and teams, are (1) how to be immensely productive every day, having specific tasks, milestones and clear targets to focus on in front of your eyes, and (2) manage a roller-coaster of emotions.
This post is about the latter. I recently found out that some successful founders have built a mood tracker to understand where their emotions were, and why - to better manage them.
Why Mood Tracking Matters
Mood tracking is a simple yet powerful practice that can help startup founders stay attuned to their emotional state and make informed decisions about their well-being and productivity.
By regularly tracking their mood, founders can identify patterns and triggers that affect their emotional balance. My bet is that this self-awareness activity can help me keep my emotional state in check (euphoria, overwhelmingness, delusion, overconfidence, etc.) and make more effective choices about work, relationships, and overall lifestyle.
By doing a quick research on internet, these are some of the apparent benefits of this practice:
- Increased awareness of emotions: Mood tracking helps founders become more aware of their emotional patterns, allowing them to identify triggers and stressors that affect their mood. This awareness can help them make proactive decisions to manage their emotional state and boost their overall well-being.
- Improved decision-making: When founders are emotionally balanced, they are better equipped to make sound decisions. Mood tracking can help them identify times when their emotions are clouding their judgment and encourage them to step back and take a more objective approach to decision-making.
- Promotes self-care practices: By tracking their mood, founders can identify areas in their lives that are contributing to stress or anxiety. This awareness can motivate them to implement self-care practices, such as exercise, meditation, or spending time with loved ones, to improve their overall mood and well-being.
- Reduces burnout: Startup founders are often under immense pressure, and burnout is a common risk. Mood tracking can help founders identify signs of burnout early on and take steps to prevent it from escalating. This could include taking breaks, delegating tasks, or seeking additional support from colleagues or mentors.
How to start and how to do it then? I was surely not willing to add another burden to my day-to-day...
Create a Mood Tracking System
There are many different ways to track your mood. I understand that some founders prefer to use simple tools like a paper journal, while others prefer more sophisticated apps with customizable features. I have decided to create a simple excel with weekly records, listing key milestones for the week and reporting my mood at the bottom of the page.
Here are some tips for creating a mood tracking system that works for you:
- Choose a method that you enjoy: If you dread tracking your mood, you're less likely to stick with it. Find a method that feels easy and enjoyable for you, whether it's keeping a daily journal, using a mood tracker app, excel (as I do) or simply making note of your mood at the end of each day.
- Track regularly: The more often you track your mood, the more insights you'll gain. Aim to track your mood once a week as a minimum.
- Include context: Along with your mood, people suggest to note down any relevant details about your day, such as your schedule, tasks, interactions, and any emotional triggers or stressors you may have experienced. To me, that is a wise tip but takes too much time. By adding milestones and activities together with my mood I am trying to squeeze the useful and the intuitive together. For me it is good enough.
- Look for patterns: Over time, the aim is to start to notice patterns in our moods. Identifying these patterns can help you make informed decisions about your work and lifestyle. A very simple example is to notice how much tired I am after a late night coding and how my mood turns more negative the day after.
Additional Tips for Managing Stress
This is easier said (or written) than done, but looks like a nice target for the future:
- Set realistic expectations: Don't expect to be able to achieve everything overnight. Set small, achievable goals and celebrate your successes along the way.
- Delegate tasks: Don't be afraid to ask for help. Delegate tasks to freelance professionals, interns, friends or team members when needed.
- Take breaks and practice self-care: schedule regular breaks throughout your day or week to step away from your work and recharge. For example, I exercise three times a week, do some warm up exercise at home 10 minutes after a coffee break and try to take a 20-minute salad lunch (when not with clients or team members) away from my PC.
- Seek support: If you're feeling overwhelmed, don't hesitate to seek support from a coach, mentor or friend. A good movie over the week-end without your mobile phone also helps.
Quick conclusion
Mood tracking is a useful mini-tool that should help startup founders improve our well-being, enhance our decision-making, and reduce burnout. By taking the time to track our moods regularly, the bet is that we can gain valuable insights into our emotional patterns and make conscious choices to promote mental and emotional health.
Let us know how it goes for you: hello@pantar.ai
