“I’m writing this email from the emergency room at the Sant’Anna Hospital…”

This could have been the opening line if I had kept going ahead yesterday night.

A storm hit nearby where I live. Lost in thoughts about my project, I didn’t realize the road got worse and worse as I advanced with my car. The engine coughed. I stopped in the middle of nowhere.

In front of me, you couldn’t tell apart the road from the surrounding crops.

Hard to say how much water was floating there.

(Residents talk about 1.5mt high.)

Luckily, I turned around in time and made myself safe before getting stuck or flipping into a ditch.

This got me thinking.

How much are we missing out?

Borrowing the Four Burners Theory, this is the season of my life where I'm grinding and bootstrapping the business. So, I put family, friends, and health on autopilot.

For a reason, okay. I turned those burners way down because work empties all the energy.

They say you can't scale two mountains at the same time, right?

Yet, it makes me feel guilty. While I keep my health afloat, somehow, denying my loved ones comes at a risk of losing them—it's a big tradeoff.

Realistically, I cannot put the same effort and energy into all my life goals. Instead, becoming successful in one area will mean more fuel for the others in the future.

Giving it all into a given area.

To a similar extent, let's split work into four different burners.

My current focus? Two apps, the newsletter and social media.

Quite a lot.

So, how do you prioritize between multiple projects? A friend asked.

To me, it sounds like this.

Alohi, my writing assistant app — occupies 50-60% of the focus. Currently in beta testing, my goal is to launch it by the end of this month. I shared my plan in the previous issue.

A new, co-founded project — 20-30%. You might not have seen it coming, but I've joined my mate Luca on this one, and we are working on a new product together. It's a scheduler and engagement tool for Threads. No name or domain yet because we are testing traction (35 subscribers so far).

The Maker Journey — 10%. It was easier to stay on top of this newsletter in the previous months (fewer commitments). Now, I had to step down and decrease the frequency to a bare minimum of an issue every two weeks.

𝕏 / Twitter — 10%. Although active, I'm engaging way less than before. Burnout taught me to cut back, so I limit my daily engagement time to 30 minutes when possible. Also, the changes in the algorithm tire me (views dropped from 5-10k to 300-500 overnight), and it's hard to justify more focus at this current rate.

Dividing myself between four projects is challenging.

As you can see, I had to lower two burners. One is even running halfway, but working with someone else makes it easier because we split focus in half.

(I wouldn't be able to work on another app alone.)

My take on this?

Avoid multiple focuses at all costs.

Mattia