46-year-old CEO who runs 2 successful startups: This is my productivity ‘cheat code’—it makes me ‘much more efficient’

It can be hard enough avoiding burnout with one full-time job. Try working two at the same time.

That’s the reality for Jyoti Bansal, 46, the current founder and CEO of two successful software startups: Harness, founded in 2017 and most recently valued at $3.7 billion in 2022, and Traceable, which launched in 2019 and was valued at $500 million in May, Bansal told TechCrunch at the time.

Startup founders are already at high risk of burnout and other mental health issues, thanks in part to their stressful jobs and the uncertainty of success for new businesses. 

So how does Bansal manage to stay healthy and productive while running two fast-growing startups? It helps that he’s built a successful company before: In 2017, he sold his first software startup, AppDynamics, to Cisco for $3.7 billion.

But Bansal, who is also a co-founder and partner at VC firm Unusual Ventures, tells CNBC Make It the secret to his ability to run two businesses simultaneously is deceptively simple, even counterintuitive: Don’t try to multitask.

“It’s very ironic that people think, [because] I’m CEO of two companies, I should be the best at multitasking,” Bansal says. “Actually, my cheat code is to not do too much multitasking.”

When he first started out as an entrepreneur with AppDynamics, Bansal often allowed himself to get distracted by trying to do too many things at once. “I used to be in a meeting and I’m on my phone replying to emails and responding to messages all the time,” he says. 

Multitasking can ultimately slow you down and result in poorer decision-making, because your brain performs better when you focus on one task at a time, research shows.

When Bansal realized that multitasking wasn’t helping, he switched his approach. “What I realized is that I’m much more productive by doing one thing in a 30-minute interval, maybe an hour interval,” he says. “So you do multitasking on an aggregate, but not at any one moment.”

Now, Bansal splits his time between his two companies by marking off intervals where he works only on one task or project from one of the businesses at a time. It’s a strategy called time blocking, or time boxing, which has been shown to boost productivity while combating burnout — especially when you schedule in breaks from work, too.

“I’m just much more efficient, more mindful, more present in that moment. And that’s really helped me,” Bansal says.

Rather than trying to do “two things at the same time,” and risking suboptimal results, Bansal can now spend 30 minutes “working with our engineers [on] technical problems I’m interested in.” The next 30 minutes, “I could be with our investors and board on something [at a] much higher business-level kind,” he says. “The next 30 minutes, I could be in a customer conversation. And I can do it between the two companies.”

Other high-profile leaders, from Whole Foods Market CEO Jason Buechel to Goldman Sachs executive Shekhinah Bass, use time blocking to boost their efficiency while avoiding becoming overwhelmed by jam-packed schedules and to-do lists. 

The scheduling trick allows Buechel to “focus on Whole Foods Market’s longer-term vision and strategy” instead of being stuck in back-to-back meetings all day, he told CNBC Make It in September.

When it comes to deciding how to prioritize those 30-minute blocks, Bansal’s strategy is to keep the focus on what he can meaningfully accomplish: “I don’t really try to manage time. I try to manage impact,” he says.

Bansal often has employees from both companies who want his full attention on different issues or projects. To arrange his schedule, Bansal thinks about where his experience and skills will be “most impactful” at any given moment.

“My framework is very simple: If I don’t spend my time on something, is it going to move the needle one way or another, like, negatively or positively?” he says.

If the answer is “No,” Bansal typically feels comfortable delegating that responsibility to another high-level employee so he can focus on something more pressing or relevant to his skills. Delegating can be a key tool for managers looking to boost efficiency and productivity, according to leadership experts. It’s also why Bansal says it’s “very important” to surround himself with people he trusts.

“Probably the most important thing is to have the right people. How you scale [a business] is having the right people,” he says. “They know how you think, I know how they think. We are on the same page and we can operate in an effective way.”

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