How to structure your life: The Entrepreneur, Manager, and Technician mindset.

I like this quote from the E-Myth Revisited book:

Everybody who goes into business is actually three people in one: The Entrepreneur dreams, the Manager frets, and the Technician ruminates.

While this is true for business, I personally think it extends to life too.

First, we can’t say that running a business = living your life, but it’s a good metaphor for what I’m describing here. So, bare with me for a second and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Let's start:

In order to live a fulfilling life, a good amount of planning is crucial at many steps of your life. It’s not about planning every hour of your day “to be productive”, but it’s about planning while keeping the end goal in mind.

For example, you can’t live your life reacting to current circumstances while forgetting about your goal. At the same time, you can’t be focused on your goals and forgetting about living in the moment. After all, it’s all about balance (yes, it sounds cliché, but it’s true).

This means you need to wear many hats and play different roles during your life. And this is where the starting a business = living your life metaphor comes into play:

Be The Entrepreneur of your life.

Just like an entrepreneur in a company, your role is to have a clear definition of your short-term and long-term goals. Assign a clear priority for each. And keep things in sight.

But there is one thing people get wrong about being an entrepreneur or leading a business: It’s not all about driving profit upward! Entrepreneurs needs to keep their business solid by hiring, training, and improving the work environment. If a business is growing, but the workforce is unhappy, it is only a matter of time before losing everything.

Likewise, as the entrepreneur of your own life, your goals shouldn’t be profit/money focused only. Have goals for your health, social life, and household too. Assign high priorities to those and treat them like real projects/goals.

Be The Manager of your own time

While the entrepreneur (you) picks what to work on next, the manager (hint: also you) needs to find time for that. Your job as a manager is to balance the current projects and find time to keep things on track.

You can do this using your preferred workflow, but always keep in mind to leave some free time for yourself and for those opportunities that pops up randomly.

Be The Technician (executor) of your dreams

All this planning is good, but we need execution. And guess what, that’s your job too! But at least you’ll be working on things you know will move you closer to your goals.

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The best part about these separations of roles is each time you pick on a role, you free your head from the others.

When I’m The Entrepreneur, my job is to pick the next things to work on. I don’t care (yet) about how to schedule them in my calendar.

When I’m The Manager, all I care about is how to balance these projects on my calendar. I don’t worry about how to execute them, or why I have these projects to start with.

Finally, when I’m The Technician, I care about execution. That’s what keeps me moving forward.

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Of course, there is a feedback loop between all these roles:

• The Entrepreneur (you) picks a new project because The Manager (also you) shared they have some free time.
• The Manager move things around because The Technician is having a rough day/week.
• etc.

I've been using this approach for quite some time, and it's been working fine. I think many of us use it just not formalized like this.

What do you think about this approach? And are you using something different? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.