What Building Two Things at Once Actually Looks Like (It's Not Glamorous)

Look, if you’re someone my age, and you’re trying to build a life that’s catered to your unique advantages and feels like Play, in practice this is what it looks like:

I had to stay up all night last night building up a project. Basically a one stop shop for anyone in healthcare to find community and resources. Premeds get inside scoops on med school, med students on residencies, residents on programs, attendings on hospitals.

Think @levelsio’s Nomad List (nomads.com) but for healthcare. I’ll share more in the future but you can watch it as it gets built live here: https://medatlas-omega.vercel.app

Anyways, time just flew by.

At some point, I start hearing birds and look outside to see the next morning sun. Guess I missed my sleep window. But instead of my bed, I go straight to the local Starbucks. I have a strict study schedule. I show up there at 6am and stayed until ~9:40am, studying for the USMLE Step 1 exam. 400 flashcards, 20 practice questions.

Wrapped up by 9:45 and commuted 1hr into NYC for an 11am client meeting. I was asked to teach their in-house team. Went well. 2 hour session.

Immediately after needed to pop down at the nearest WeWork to take back-to-back calls from 2-5pm.

Commuted back home and crashed by 6pm— awoke at 9pm. Worse schedule tomorrow.

Now, I share this because I know this is *not* healthy, and I know it sounds like the hustle culture meme. Still, it’s important to be honest with what this stuff is really like in practice.

I am only doing so to document and accurately share here what it looks like to do two very hard things at the same time.

I don’t recall if it was Naval Ravikant or Ali Abdaal but someone once said that work should feel like play. That’s what inspired the intro to this post that hooked you in. Just like you, I too am trying to build my life around this specific principle.

The ironic part I’ve found is in what folks forget to tell you: getting there will still feel like work most of the time— expressly not play.

If you’ve read this far, we’re probably more similar than we are different.

Will probably write more about this in next week’s Sunday newsletter, but for now maybe you’ll appreciate what I try to remind myself as well: you can’t complain about having too much to eat, if all you’ve wanted was to be able to cook.