When Kass and I started GOLF.com, life was easy. Kass and I were dating. We spent our days, and many nights, working. We had no real commitments other than a growing company, a beautiful dog (RIP, Cookie … we love you) and our relationship. A typical weekend day for us in Chicago pretty much sums up our life at the time:
9 am: Wake Up
10 am: Breakfast at Salt n’ Pepper Diner
11 am: Workout at LPAC (Lincoln Park Athletic Club)
12:30 pm: Lunch at [Houstons, Pennys, Dues, Silver Cloud]
2 pm-6 pm: Sit on couch and cuddle as we watched [fill sport/movie here]
8 pm: Dinner with friends
10 pm: Meet up at bar with friends
12 midnight: Sleep
Sprinkle in a few dog walks and interchange different restaurants and afternoon activities, a trip to Vegas every few months, and that was our life. Simple. Focused on business, our relationship and general personal utility. And plenty of time to do everything we wanted and needed to do.
Fast forward 3 companies, 3 children, 2 cities and 1 deceased dog later, and my life has become a little more complicated. I'm asked all the time. How do I juggle the company, 3 kids, my relationship with Kass, my own needs, keeping up with friends and family, 2 blogs and all my other commitments?
I don’t have all the answers as even thinking about all Kass and I do is overwhelming. But I think it comes down to effectively prioritizing how we spend our time.
We don’t sleep in, ever. I get up around 6-6:30 am each day. Earlier if I need some personal time to get things done. Vivi gets up with me around 6:30 am. The boys wake up around 7 am. We spend the morning together and then we’re all off to do what we do all day – school (boys), work (Kass and me), eat, throw-up and poo (Vivi).
Once the day starts, it’s easy to let the day get away from you. Meetings run over. Family and friends call. Emails pile up. But here is how I manage my time to make sure I live the best and most productive and enjoyable life I can.
The foundation is prioritizing both my daily and weekly schedules based on what’s important to me.
First, Kass. No matter what’s going on with the company, the kids or friends, my relationship with Kass is the most important part of my daily and weekly schedule. And my schedule reflects this. I try to do anything I can on a moment-to-moment basis to be helpful and present for Kass. I’m not always successful. But I try and succeed at least more than half the time.
From a scheduling standpoint, we block off time to be together. I know that doesn’t sound romantic or spontaneous. But it’s necessary with our craziness. We have set babysitters on Tuesday and Saturday night to ensure we have plenty of time together. We eat lunch together at least once or twice a week. Tuesday nights are often date nights. Just us. We reconnect. Saturdays are often with friends and others we want to spend time with. We try to get away for a few nights or a long weekend every quarter.
Second, the kids. My kids are my true legacy. And I’m trying to be involved, engaged and attached to them. As Fred Wilson wrote in one of his better posts, “you’d better pay attention to your kids when they are young, build the connections early, because if you don’t, when they become teenagers, you won’t be able to reach them and you’ll have missed your opportunity.” While most respect Fred for his business accomplishments, I am constantly impressed by his commitments to his family. He could be running a billion dollar fund based on his incredible track record. But he's not willing to compromise his family life. The same is true with my good friend Keith Bank, who I truly respect as a dad.
I make it a priority to spend time with the kids. I see them every morning for an hour or two. I try to get home by 5:30 pm so I can spend a few hours with them. I feed them, play with them, water them, walk them outside one last time so they pee and poo before bed, and put them to bed. Often I do this all with Kass. I take the kids to breakfast every Saturday, followed by an adventure (golf at Randalls Island, a museum, the gym, Riverside Park, whatever). Just me as Kass sleeps. Often at Sarabeths. But we’ve known to hit Manhattan Diner, Good Enough To Eat, Landmarc, Florent and even the restaurant at the Mandarin Hotel. I’ve been doing this since Myles was born and he still remembers those early mornings at Clarks. Kass used to think that I did this to be nice to her. She now knows I do it for selfish reasons. It makes me extremely happy and my kids, even at this early age, are among my favorite people to hang out with, whether we're at Jazzfest in New Orleans or playing Wii at home.
Another tradition I cherish is how I put the kids to bed. Every night I tell the kids 3 things:
1) I love you.
2) I’ll always be there for you.
3) Everything will be OK.
The boys have memorized these sayings. They’re engrained in them. And they often mock them as I say them every night. But deep down, I know they are comforting to them and thoughts that they’ll take with them for the rest of their lives. In the end, it's nice to know that someone loves you, someone has your back and best interests in mind and that everything will work out.
Third, work. While the first 2 above are most important, work sucks most of my time. So I need to be incredibly smart about how I spend my time. As most of you know, I work with Kass. I’m often asked, “How do you work with your wife?” I respond, “How would I work without my wife?” If you don’t work with people you love and like, who do you work with? People you hate? Working together provides us a shared life that is unique and rewarding. Even though we have our differences from time to time. OK. From day to day. We keep work at work, we try to resolve all issues right away. And we don’t take things personally.
The most important time management skill I’ve learned is how to handle email and voice mails. At GOLF.com, I often found myself a slave to email. I felt pressured to respond right away. This created a dynamic in which I responded promptly to most emails but I failed to accomplish the most important things I needed to do each day. Maybe that's why it took me 6 years to exit!!!! I now answer email in the morning and in the evening. Anything that is not urgent sits and waits until my dedicated email time.
The first thing I do when I get to the office in the morning is write down the top 5 items I need to accomplish that day. People I need to call. Deals I need to move forward. Meetings I need to set up. Contracts I need to get done. Proposals I need to send out. And I do my best to focus on those items, and those items only. This is not always possible. But I’m more productive by focusing on a prioritized list than just starting the day without a plan. Most days I knock off 4 of the 5. Some days I get to none and they roll over to the next day. Some days they roll over to a third and even fourth day! But when the stars align, I get them all done. But by turning off email and voice mail and by doing what’s most important for me, I am able to advance my agenda.
Lastly about work, meetings. It’s easy as the CEO of a hot internet company to schedule meetings all day, every day. But I am extremely selective. I reviewed this week, and here are the stats.
~ In total, there are 25 meetings this week on my schedule.
~ 13 meetings are sales meetings. These are the most important meetings I have. They lead to revenue. Revenue pays the bills. Revenue leads to profits. You usually sell companies based on a multiple of those profits. Unless you get really lucky and someone buys you for your technology, eyeballs (distribution), IP or some other reason. So these meetings represent my future. I try to spend 50% of my time selling.
~ 6 meetings were internal meetings. This was a heavy week for internal meetings. I usually don’t have more than 3-4 internal meetings a week. One all-team meeting and then additional meetings with the head of sales, head of technology and maybe an operations meeting with Kass. Because we have worked together so long, we can often finish each others' sentences and be there for each other without even meeting. I also met with the marketing team about a re-design of the aweful BuddyMedia.com corporate site (we’ve been too busy to put any effort into it!). And I met with Ira Tau (VP/Engineering) to discuss the technical integration of our latest acquisition.
~ 3 meetings were interviews. We’re looking for additional tech resources. So this is a priority and Ira is only pulling me in when the candidate passes his initial screening.
~ 1 meeting was with a board member, Howard Lindzon. We’re talking strategy, introductions, biz dev and more.
~ 3 meetings were personal in nature. One with a company I may invest in. Another with the head of development at Medill (Northwestern’s journalism school).
I try to focus on meetings that will help move the company forward. And I am constantly saying no to meetings that are distracting and show no promise.
Fourth, my needs. While I give a ton to Kass, the kids and work, I focus on giving myself what I need. If I’m not happy with myself, I won’t be able to be happy and productive with others.
This includes eating well (most of the time) and working out. The mind and the body are connected. And if your body isn’t healthy, neither is your mind. Given my heart issues in the past (2 open heart surgeries, a new aortic valve and patch), this is even more important for me. So I work out with a trainer on Monday and Thursdays and squeeze in a workout Wednesday and Saturday at a minimum. If I can get in a fifth, awesome. I stay connected with friends and family the best I can. I keep up with my blog as I want to hand this site over to my kids in the future. I want them to see a detailed, chronologically ordered record of their life. And if I’m lucky, they’ll join me and start posting to Lazerow.com as they grow up. I go to dinner with my guy friends. I do a golf trip or some other trip every now and then. I get a message once or twice a month. I play golf. I listen to and buy a ton of music. I play poker every now and then. I read – magazines, blogs, the WSJ. I call friends. I edit videos (though I’ve fallen behind). I watch the evening news when I can. I play Guitar Hero and Tiger Woods golf. I stop and get a slice of pizza or a Grays Papaya hot dog (and don't tell Kass that I did so!). I wander into the Best Buy on Broadway. I get a smoothie from Equinox. All of these things are important as I need to blow off the stink on a daily basis.
So there it is. Prioritizing my life – Kass, kids, work, me and my friends – helps me focus on what’s important and most rewarding. While I’m busier than I have ever been, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I am so fortunate to have an amazingly talented, beautiful wife. I am so lucky to have 3 healthy, smart, fun and funny kids. I am challenged at work. I do love going to work and thinking about work. And I am fortunate to be in a position to have some financial freedom and upside from everything I’m working on. And I have my health and many close friendships I cherish.
When we first were married and living in Chicago, I used to tell Kass the same thing each day when I got home from work: I’m the luckiest man in the world. I don’t know why I stopped saying it. But I did and I’m sorry about that. But I truly am the luckiest man in the world and I expect to tell Kass and the kids that more often.
