Adora Cheung - How to Prioritize Your Time

Summary

このビデオスクリプトでは、スタートアップを成功させるために時間を優先順位付けする方法について解説しています。重要なのは、実際のビジネス成長に貢献するタスクを特定し、優先順位をつけることです。主な指標(KPI)の成長に最も影響を与えるタスクを特定し、週ごとの目標を達成するための高影響力、低複雑性のタスクを優先します。また、週次進捗報告を通じてタスクの選択と優先順位付けを評価し、時間を無駄にしないスケジュールを組むことが求められます。重要なのは迅速な意思決定と、間違った選択をしても素早く学び直し、正しい方向に進むことです。

Takeaways

• 🕒 時間を大切にしよう - スター tupは時間が貴重で、その使い方で成功の可能性が決まる。
• 📈 実際の進歩と偽の進歩を区別する - 実際のビジネス成長に貢献するものに注目し、それ以外は避ける。
• 🎯 主要なKPIを目指せ - 周囲の成長を示すために、主なKPIを設定し、それに向けたタスクに集中する。
• 🗓 週ごとの目標を設定する - 週ごとの目標を設定し、それに沿ったタスクを優先的に選択する。
• 📝 タスクリストを管理する - 常に更新されたタスクリストを保ち、優先度の高いものから取り組む。
• 🔍 価値のあるタスクを見つける - 価値のあるタスクを特定し、それらを優先的に実行する。
• 📊 影響と複雑さを評価する - タスクの影響と複雑さを評価し、最も効果的な順に優先度をつける。
• 📈 週ごとの進歩を追跡する - 週ごとの目標達成状況を追跡し、進歩を評価する。
• 🚫 低い価値のタスクを避ける - 自動操縦モードに陥らず、低価値のタスクを避け、時間の無駄を省く。
• 🔄 スケジュールを調整する - 高いコンテキスト切り替えコストがあるタスクには連続した時間を割く。
• 🏁 素早く動く - 素早く意思決定し、間違いを犯してもすぐに学び直し、次のステップへ進む。

Q & A

アドラはどのような立場でスピーチをしているのですか？

アドラはY Combinator（YC）のパートナーであり、スタートアップの時間管理に関するアドバイスを提供しています。

スタートアップにとって時間とはどのような意味を持つものですか？

スタートアップにとって時間は貴重なもので、お金を燃やすことでもなく、ビジネスを維持する基本的な要素です。

アドラはどのようにしてタスクを優先順位付けするべきかを説明していますか？

はい、アドラはタスクを優先順位付けする方法について説明しており、それがスタートアップの成功に重要な影響を与えると述べています。

「本当のスタートアップの進歩」と「偽のスタートアップの進歩」とは何を意味していますか？

「本当のスタートアップの進歩」とは、スタートアップの主要なKPIを成長させることに焦点を当てた活動のことです。一方、「偽のスタートアップの進歩」とは、実際の顧客価値提供に直接関係しない活動を指しています。

アドラはなぜタスクリストを保持することが重要だと述べていますか？

タスクリストは新しいアイデアを記録し、優先順位を付けるための重要なツールであり、時間管理の効率を高めるのに役立ちます。

アドラはタスクをどのように評価し、優先順位を付けるべきかを提案していますか？

アドラはタスクを「高い」「中程度」「低い」の3つのレベルに分類し、それに基づいて優先順位を付けるべきだと提案しています。

タスクの「影響」と「複雑さ」という2つの次元はどのように関連していますか？

「影響」と「複雑さ」はタスクの優先順位を決定する際に重要な2つの次元であり、高影響で複雑なタスクは優先されますが、低影響で複雑なタスクは避けるべきです。

アドラは週ごとの目標を達成するためにどのようにタスクを選ぶべきかを説明していますか？

アドラは高影響で簡単なタスクから始め、次に高影響で中程度の複雑さのタスクに進むべきだと説明しています。

アドラはどのようにして時間管理を改善し、進歩を促すとアドバイスしていますか？

アドラは週ごとのアップデートを書くこと、タスクを細分化すること、そしてスケジュールを再構成することなど、時間管理を改善するための具体的なアドバイスを提供しています。

アドラはなぜ迅速な意思決定が重要だと述べていますか？

迅速な意思決定は、スタートアップが市場に適しているものを構築しているかどうかを早く検証し、適切な方向へ進むための鍵となります。

Outlines

00:00

🕒 スタートアップの時間管理

アドラは、YCのパートナーとしてスタートアップの時間管理について話します。スタートアップでは時間は貴重で、資金を燃やし続ける状況下で、機会費用が常にあります。重要なのは、最も影響力のあるタスクを特定し、優先順位をつけることです。多くの創業者はこれがうまくいっていないとアドラは指摘。実際の時間管理とは、24時間をどのように割り当てるかではなく、スタートアップにどれだけの時間を割り当てるかを意味します。アドラはタスクリストの作成と、それを通じて実際のスタートアップ進歩と偽の進歩を区別することが重要だと語ります。実際の進歩は、主にKPIの成長を示すことです。

05:01

📈 優先度の高いタスクの特定

アドラは、タスクの優先順位を決める方法について説明します。まず、タスクの影響力を評価し、週ごとの目標達成にどの程度貢献するのかを判断します。次に、タスクの複雑さを_easy_, _medium_, _hard_の3つのレベルに分類します。これにより、タスクを効果的に並べ替え、週の目標を達成するのに最も重要なタスクに集中することができるようになります。また、タスクをこなすのにかかる時間を考慮し、週内に達成可能な範囲内でのタスクを選択することが重要です。

10:01

📊 時間配分とタスクの優先順位

アドラは、時間配分とタスクの優先順位を設定する具体的な方法を提案します。週ごとの目標を設定し、達成できたかどうかを週次更新レポートで誠実に評価することが肝心です。また、タスクの影響力と複雑さを組み合わせて、優先度を決定します。高影響力で簡単なタスクから始め、次に高影響力で中程度の複雑性のタスクに移るのが良いとアドラはアドバイスします。

15:04

🚀 迅速な意思決定と行動

最後にアドラは、迅速な意思決定と行動の重要性を強調します。スタートアップでは早くも何が求められているかを証明し、市場とのフィットを確立することが大切です。間違った選択をしても、素早く学び直し、正しい方向に進むことができる人は、適切なタスクを選択するために時間を無駄に過ごす人よりも優れているとアドラは結びます。

Keywords

💡スタートアップ

スタートアップとは、新しいビジネスを開始し、成長を目指す企業やプロジェクトを指します。このビデオでは、スタートアップが成功するために時間をどのように最適に割り当て、優先順位を決めるかが重要なテーマとなっています。例えば、スクリプトでは「スタートアップの成功を最大化するためには、最も影響力のあるタスクを特定し、優先順位を決める必要がある」と述べています。

💡時間管理

時間管理とは、時間を効果的に使用し、目標達成に必要なタスクに集中するスキルを指します。ビデオでは、スタートアップの成功に時間をどのように割り当て、優先順位を決めるかが焦点になっており、「時間は貴重であり、スタートアップを動かす基本的な資源である」と説明されています。

💡優先順位

優先順位は、タスクや目標を達成する上で何が最も重要であるかを判断するプロセスです。ビデオでは、最も影響力のあるタスクを特定し、優先順位を決めることがスタートアップの進歩に最も重要なとされています。例えば、「最も影響力のあるタスクを特定し、優先順位を決めることが重要」と述べられています。

💡主要KPI

主要KPIとは、ビジネスの主要なパフォーマンス指標を意味します。ビデオでは、スタートアップの成長を示すために主要KPIを設定し、それに焦点を当てることが求められます。「あなたの主要KPIはほぼ常に収益かアクティブユーザーであり、それが最も大きな影響を与えるものを増やすために週ごとの目標を設定する必要がある」と説明されています。

💡フェイクなスタートアップ進歩

フェイクなスタートアップ進歩とは、実際のビジネス成長に直接関係しない活動を指します。ビデオでは、フェイクな進歩は実際の顧客への価値提供から遠く離れており、避けるべきだと警告しています。例えば、「フェイクなスタートアップ進歩は、あなたの主要KPIを直接成長させることに関連していない」と述べています。

💡タスクリスト

タスクリストは、達成したい目標やタスクを記入するリストです。ビデオでは、タスクリストを維持し、新しいアイデアを頻繁に更新することが推奨されています。「あなたはすでにタスクリストを持っていると予想している」と述べていますが、これはタスクを優先順位付けする出発点として機能します。

💡ユーザーとのコミュニケーション

ユーザーとのコミュニケーションは、顧客との関係を築き、フィードバックを得るプロセスです。ビデオでは、ユーザーとのコミュニケーションは製品のロードマップを決定し、製品が顧客を獲得し収益を生むのに役立つと強調されています。

💡製品開発

製品開発は、アイデアから実際の製品へと変えていくプロセスです。ビデオでは、製品開発はユーザーに解決策を提供し、顧客と収益を増やすための重要なステップとして位置づけられています。「製品開発は実際にユーザーに解決策を提供する」と述べています。

💡週ごとの目標

週ごとの目標は、1週間で達成しようとする具体的な成果物です。ビデオでは、週ごとの目標を設定し、それを達成することで主要KPIを動かすことが求められています。「週ごとの目標を設定し、それを達成することは最も影響力のあること」と説明されています。

💡タスクの優先順位付け

タスクの優先順位付けは、タスクを重要性や影響力に基づいて順序づけするプロセスです。ビデオでは、タスクを高、中、低の3つのレベルに分類し、最も影響力があり実行しやすいタスクから始めることが推奨されています。「タスクを優先順位付けし、最も影響力のあるものから始めることが重要」と述べています。

Highlights

Time is precious, especially for startups, as it directly relates to financial burn and opportunity costs.

The importance of prioritizing tasks that have the most impact on a startup's progress.

Defining 'real' startup progress as activities that directly contribute to growth, particularly in primary KPIs.

The primary KPIs are often revenue or active users, and setting weekly goals for these is crucial.

Differentiating between real progress and 'fake' startup progress, such as attending conferences or focusing on awards.

The experiment of journaling daily activities to identify low-value work and its impact on KPIs.

Keeping a spreadsheet of ideas that can move the primary KPI and grading them based on impact.

Tasks involving talking to users and building product are usually high-impact activities.

Avoiding the common mistake of technical founders to build first and then seek user feedback.

Grading tasks based on impact and complexity to determine prioritization.

Focusing on high-impact and easy tasks first, then moving to medium complexity tasks.

The importance of not trying to do everything at once and picking tasks that can be completed well.

Consistently hitting weekly goals as an indicator of effective time prioritization.

Writing weekly updates to track progress and identify blockers to growth.

Reviewing past weekly updates to improve task selection and prioritization.

Breaking down complex tasks into smaller, manageable ones to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

Adopting a modified maker-manager schedule to reduce context switching and increase productivity.

The value of moving fast and making decisions quickly, even if they might be wrong, to learn and adapt.

Transcripts

hello as kevin said my name is adora i'm

one of the partners at yc

and i'm going to talk about how to

prioritize time

time as you know is precious especially

when you're working on a startup

time burns money and money is the very

basic thing

that keeps a startup alive not to be too

philosophical about it but even if your

personal burn is super low

you can eat ramen days on end which i

don't suggest and you don't have to pay

yourself for a very long time there's

always a high opportunity cost

to doing your startup so it's super

important

to use your time the best way possible

to maximize your startups

chance for success which means you need

to be

really good at identifying and

prioritizing tasks that

are going to be the most impactful for

your startup's progress

which i've noticed after going through

thousands of weekly updates from startup

school founders

um that a lot of founders are not doing

this well so hopefully this will be

helpful

let me first pre-face all of this by

defining what time

i'm talking about so obviously there are

24 hours in a day and i'm not here

to tell you how to allocate those hours

across your startup versus everything

else that is important to you sleep

family friends hobbies and so and so

forth

um everyone has different situations so

it's hard for me to

from up here give you good generic

advice um on how

to uh allocate your time across these

things i'm just gonna assume you're

doing what's best for you

whether it's 2 6 12 hours a day that you

decide to work on your startup

it doesn't matter to me for the purpose

of this lecture i just want to help you

figure out

how to spend those 2 6 or 12 hours that

you've decided to allocate your startup

in the best possible way

all right so when it comes to things to

work on your startup

my guess is that you already have

something like a task list

in which you put new ideas on um

to eventually work on and you update

that very frequently um so let's start

from there that you have a task list of

things to do

first i want to make a real clear

distinction between real

and fake startup progress this is the

easiest way to classify whether a tasks

goes in the should do or the should not

do bucket

if it contributes to real startup

progress you should consider doing it

and if it doesn't then don't this seems

trivial at first

why would anyone do anything that

amounts to fake startup progress

but let me explain further so

real startup progress is when you're

really focused on things that

really move the needle for your startup

and in the beginning

the best way to show this is through

growth in particular growth of your

primary kpi

i gave a whole lecture on this a few

weeks ago on kpi and goals

if you haven't watched it yet please

watch it i talk a lot about primary and

secondary kpis

there's always a balance between what to

focus on but for the purpose of this

lecture i'm just going to refer to the

primary kpi

as the thing to focus on growing so to

summarize

your primary kpi almost always is either

revenue

or active users and you should always be

setting weekly goals for this to move

the needle on the kpis the highest

leverage thing you can

be doing also always comes in the form

of tasks that involve

talking to users and building and

iterating

your product nothing else this is in

direct

contrast with fake startup progress

which is when founders

focus on things that are not directly

related to growing your primary kpi

so common things i see in

weekly updates are things like attending

conferences

focusing on winning awards network

events optimizing the wrong metrics

while you may convince yourself these

are good things to focus on

they're actually many steps away from

delivering real value to your customer

and so if all the things you could be

possibly doing spending any significant

time

on any of these things is almost always

a bad idea

the goal is not to optimize startup

vanity

but actually delivering value to your

customer doing the things that will help

you directly

help you increase your kpi now that we

have one way to filter

what tasks you should be working on

let's go a little bit deeper

and figure out how to determine if

you're prioritizing the right tasks

this at first also seems trivial

presumably you're doing

what you believe is high value work i

mean nobody ever says oh let me

do the thing that is going to help my

startup the least right

uh but that's what i'm going to

challenge there are hundreds of things

you could be possibly working on to

increase your primary kpi

is what you're working on right now the

best thing you can do to meet your

weekly goal

or have you tricked yourself into doing

something else

the reason i'm skeptical is because it's

actually quite easy

easy for a low value work to

unnoticeably creep into your

schedule it actually takes a lot of work

and effort to not let this happen

so here's an experiment try journaling

in great detail

of each day in the past week every

single hour so hour by hour what is it

that you were exactly doing

and be honest on what you thought the

impact was before you actually did it

and what it was in increasing your

primary kpi

i think you'll be surprised by how much

of it it was actually low value work

and the reason is not because you're

lazy

or i hope not it's more because we tend

to be

as humans on autopilot so we don't give

much thought to what we're doing with

our time

and our natural instinct is actually to

go for low value work

because it's usually the easiest and

quickest thing to accomplish

and it fulfills our desire to check as

many things off of a list as possible

it feels really good to check things off

so

but once you're aware of this preventing

it is actually quite simple

but it does take time thought and

discipline so first if you aren't

already

you should keep a spreadsheet of ideas

that can move your primary kpi

and not to be too repetitive but these

tasks are almost always a variant of two

things right

one talking to users and two building

product

talking to users helps you with three

things right it converts them into

customers and revenue

or helps you convert them to customers

and revenue it helps you understand if

you're on the right track or not

and it helps you figure out if your

product

sorry it helps you figure out your

products roadmap and then building

product

actually delivers a solution to the user

to see if it actually translates into

more customers and revenue so as you

come up with these ideas

you should log them into your

spreadsheet and keep keep doing that as

every idea you get but the key is don't

do them right away

just write them down and this is

important because always switching to

the thing you just thought of

which always sounds better now than

later causes a ton of whiplash for

founders

and it's a primary call part in making

no progress during the week

so now you're tracking this list then

once we go through each item in your

spreadsheet and grade

the new and re-grade the old items based

on how impactful you think the task

would be

on achieving the weekly goal for your

primary kpi

there are three grades you can give to

each task on your list

high medium low these definitions are a

little arbitrary in the sense that it's

it's all

gener it's all relative to whatever else

is on your list

but in general high means it's a task

you believe that

will help you meet your goal for the

week with high probability

medium is you're not sure but with ok

probability you can hit your weekly goal

and low is with very low probability

you'll see that it's actually pretty

easy to figure out

what those low and high value tasks are

when you compare them against everything

else you could be doing

which is why this exercise no matter how

pedantic it is

is important to do so let me go through

an example

let's say i'm the founder of a of a sas

software

generic sas software company my goal for

the next week and i just kind of

launched and my goal for the next week

is just to get five

new paying customers so here's just a

sliver

of uh things i can do to reach that goal

at the top you'll see

that the most impactful thing i can do

is go to the offices of 10 potential

customers who were actually intro to me

by friends or whoever

and i know that if i show up to the

office

i have a very good chance just from my

experience i have a very good chance of

of convincing them to buy my product

um and so that's why that's at the top

of the list the next few

are of meeting impact because they

involve me filling up my pipeline

which is one step away from landing new

customers but necessary

to do i also have the second thing here

i also have a video demos i can do which

for me aren't as effective as doing in

person but worth doing as well because

they do lead to some new customers

you'll notice that there are a couple

items at the bottom

of this which involve programming so a

very common mistake

technical founders make is to build

things first and then go talk to users

and according to this list to meet my

weekly goal this means

they would be choosing the least

impactful thing to do for that week

but with this method if they're honest

about it they have no choice but to get

off their butt

and go talk to users instead

so along with the impact um that it may

have on your weekly on meeting

helping you achieve your weekly goal we

also need to consider a second dimension

of how complex the task is

that is how long would it take for you

and your team to complete it

uh because there are many tasks within

each category of impact for example

there's like four of here in medium and

three and low

and so the question is how do i stack

rank those

within that category um and so this

dimension of complexity helps

so we can create complexity in three

ways

easy medium and hard so easy an easy

task is something that you can do

in less than a day that means you can do

a bunch of easy tasks in today

a medium task is something that takes

one or two days for you to do

and a hard task is one that takes many

days to do and you may not complete it

within the week

so once you go grade all of them you'll

have

again the second dimension here where

you have impact and then also complexity

and so now you can easily stack rank all

the tasks in your list

and pretty it's pretty easy to choose

what you should prioritize

so given the objective is to hit your

weekly goal the obvious choice is always

to go

something with the uh to go for the

combos of high easy combos on high

medium that is

something attached that has high impact

and is easy to do you should always do

those first

and then go to high impact and medium

median complexity uh

and you what you really don't want to do

is focus on these bottom things here

right something that has probably very

little probability in helping

you achieve your goal and is very hard

to do it takes a long time to do there's

really no point in doing any of those

things

so just as important as selecting the

right task to work on is making sure you

don't try to do everything at once

pick enough tasks that you can complete

and do well

doing too many things means you won't be

able to complete much

with much of the task with much

conviction and makes it really hard to

show progress from week to week

how do i know i am prioritizing my time

well

ultimately you know you've done well if

you're hitting your weekly goals

consistently

so it's you're doing well if your graphs

look like that

um sadly most of us have graphs that

look like this

these trousers where it's decreasing and

you're kind of like

stable for a while at the bottom um

that's when you start doubting yourself

is like am i working really on the right

thing

um or not and so what can we do about

this or how do we know

so one way is to do what you're already

doing in startup school

which is writing weekly updates and

being really consistent and honest about

it

so the key components of weekly update

is pretty straightforward what was your

weekly goal

did you succeed if not what was the

biggest block of the growth

uh what did you do and what was the

predicted impact and what was the action

and

what was the actual impact and what it

did what did you learn this week what

were the big learnings this week

and then by doing an ongoing evaluation

of your weekly updates

it will help you improve how you select

and prioritize

tasks once in a while you should review

all your weekly updates like from

beginning the first one you ever wrote

for your startup to the current one to

the last one

and check for things like do you feel

like you're learning fast enough

are you predicting the impact of each

task well

did you let low value work or even worse

fake

progress creep into your schedule is

your biggest blocker the same thing for

every week

a lot of people actually get in a rough

spot where they're not learning anything

new

and just doing the same thing over and

over without realizing it

reviewing your updates will help you

realize that and

will force you to try to get yourself

out of that bad loop

in terms this last one in terms of

completing tasks if you're finding

yourself

always running out of time to complete

tasks you felt was totally possible

to complete in the week i have two

suggestions for you

one is perhaps your task is actually too

complex and you should break it down

into medium and easy tasks

uh the second one is maybe it is that

your schedule needs to be rejiggered a

little bit

i recommend a modified version of what

we call the makers manager schedule

which was popular popularized by paul

graham

the essay is linked in the startup

school library

the basic idea is this there are high

context switching

costs to different types of tasks for

example coding

and meetings like talking to users

meaning

it's hard to restart and ramp back up on

a task especially like coding

and it's costly to exit at a time when

things are finally flowing and you're

getting stuff done

so if you find yourself switching back

and forth too much

it may be that you're wasting time and

need to rejigger things so you have a

continuous

continuous chunk of time devoted to each

one so many

people will actually split their divide

their week in two days right so one full

day they'll just spend coding

and the next full day they'll spend

meetings and talking to users and so

forth

instead of being having like one hour

here one hour there one hour deer

for people who need to get more stuff

done in the day then they'll do

half the day they'll spend coding and

then half the day they'll

spend talking to users

uh so this is for any solo founders out

there

um this is incredibly important for you

because um you don't have the

opportunity to

divvy up the work across multiple people

um so it's really important to get your

schedule correct

all right so i'll end with one final

piece of advice

um which is moving fast so in the

beginning your startup your

primary objective is to move as quickly

as possible to prove that you're

building something

people want the faster you figure this

out

the faster you can pivot into something

or

have the confidence that you have

product market fit and can start scaling

and building a tremendous business

so making decisions thoughtfully and

quickly is super important time is often

wasted in

indecisiveness the key is to be okay

with making a wrong choice

and learning fast so of course choosing

the right thing to do

at the get-go is the best thing possible

but it's also the case that a person who

chooses the wrong task

to work on today but moves quickly

learns why it's wrong

and moves to the right one is better off

than the person that takes forever to

choose

the right tasks to work on and is

twiddling their thumbs working on low

value stuff in the meantime

that's all i have today on how to

prioritize time to summarize what you

should be doing always be working on

things that directly

impact your primary kpi do the things

that have the highest impact

to meeting your weekly goal and that

usually always means

what talking to users and building

[Applause]

[Music]

products

you