I prioritize ruthlessly. Always have.
Engineering, product, the work that actually compounds - that's where I start. Everything else waits.
That's not a bug. It's how I'm wired.
I got into software because I could build systems that handle the stuff I don't want to think about. Invoices, paperwork, repetitive admin - I find it genuinely hard to focus on. But give me a complex problem? I'll disappear for hours. It's the same thing that drives painters to their canvas or writers to their desk at 2am. When the work pulls you in, time stops.
The cycle
Some might call it laziness. I don't think so.
One of my college professors put it best during our introductory weeks. He said students are lazy, and that's actually a good thing here. As a software engineer, you need to think like a lazy person. Come up with good algorithms to take care of the repetitive stuff.
That stuck with me. Laziness, properly channeled, becomes algorithmic thinking. You refuse to do boring work twice, so you design elegant solutions that make it disappear. And here's the real power: if you can automate a task, anyone can run it. You're no longer the bottleneck. Your laziness just became delegation through design.
I suspect most software engineers, physicists, and scientists went down their professional rabbit holes chasing that same instinct. There's always a more elegant way. A more efficient solution. And we can't rest until we find it. We're wired the same way:
Boring task
→ design an algorithm for it
→ the algorithm becomes a fascinating problem on its own
→ disappear down the rabbit hole
→ emerge to find the backlog has grown even bigger
→ repeat.
The cycle never ends. You just learn to ride it.
Artists don't thrive on 9-5. Neither do engineers who think like this. We work in bursts. Deep, obsessive bursts where everything clicks and hours vanish. Then the wave passes. And the admin pile is still there.
For years I thought that was a problem to solve. Time management books. Pomodoro. "Eat the frog first." None of it stuck.
Because it's not a flaw to fix. It's just how I work.
I don't fight it anymore. Now I structure around it. Batch the boring. Protect the deep work windows. Accept that some weeks the pile grows and some weeks it shrinks.
That's the deal when you work like an artist instead of an employee.
The tax on your superpower
Every founder I know has some version of this. Your greatest strength casts its own shadow.
Deep focus is my superpower. It's also my tax.
I'm not fighting it anymore. I'm leaning into the artist in me.