Sustainability¶
The roadmap asks for about 25 hours a week for a year on top of a job. That only works with fixed routines, protected recovery, and early action on warning signs. This file gives the daily, weekly and monthly routines, the non-negotiables, and what to do when you stall, get rejected or run low.
Routines¶
| cadence | routine | time |
|---|---|---|
| daily (work days) | one focused block on the current lab or experiment; stop at a written "next step" so tomorrow starts fast | 2–2.5 h |
| daily | shutdown: write one line in the journal (what moved, what's next) | 5 min |
| weekly (Sunday) | weekly review: hours planned vs actual, what shipped, next week's top 3, with 20% slack | 45 min |
| weekly | one relationship or public-work action (outreach, public presence); one customer conversation from stage 4 if on the founder track | 1 h |
| monthly | monthly review: self-ratings, roadmap adjustment to your actual pace, leading indicators in profile.md | 1.5 h |
| quarterly | update profile.md; decide what to drop | 1 h |
The weekly shape (weekday blocks plus longer weekend sessions) is described in module 00. Plan with slack: a plan that needs every hour fails in the first busy week at work.
Non-negotiables¶
- 7+ hours of sleep. Learning consolidates during sleep; debugging quality falls sharply without it.
- Exercise 3 times a week, even 30 minutes.
- One full day off every other week, and time with people you care about.
- Keep your job while preparing unless you have runway and a reason; financial stress leads to bad decisions, in job searches and in startups.
Warning signs and responses¶
| warning sign | response |
|---|---|
| actual hours below 60% of plan for two weeks | shrink the plan to what you actually did, then add 10%; don't carry a guilt backlog |
| reading instead of building for a whole week | next session starts with running a test or measuring a number, not reading |
| energy rating at 2 or below (of 5) for two weeks | take three days fully off; check sleep, exercise, work stress |
| dreading the next session | switch to the smallest possible task (25 minutes, one test passing) |
| comparing yourself with people on social media | mute; compare with your own journal from three months ago |
When stuck or demotivated¶
Shrink the task to 25 minutes, finish something small, and write down what blocked you. After two stuck weeks on the same thing, ask for help: a community, a mentor, a study partner. Asking early is a skill interviewers value, not a weakness.
Handling rejection¶
Rejections are data about a funnel stage, not a verdict on you. Within 24 hours, fill the debrief, pick one thing to drill, and close the loop politely with the recruiter (ask for feedback; some will share it). Then stop thinking about it. Aggregate monthly: repeated patterns tell you what to fix (funnel diagnostics).
For founders¶
Founding adds uncertainty that doesn't stop at the end of the workday. Keep the same non-negotiables, keep personal and company money separate, set a runway threshold at which you will return to employment (write it down now), and talk to other founders: most problems you meet have been met before.
Tip
Protect the routine, not the streak. Missing a week is normal; what matters is that the weekly review happens anyway and the plan adjusts to reality.