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If you want to live a more focused life you need to closely examine what you want to focus on.If you focus on chores and responsibilities you will undoubtedly have a very hard time making your life work. Human beings are not supposed to be slaves to their work and their bill-paying ability. They are supposed to be happy.People in other countries don’t focus on their work. In the Netherlands, for example, they “Work to Live” unlike in America where people “Live to Work” and are miserable.The way to live a more focused life is to focus on the things you enjoy. Then focusing will be easy.If you watch little children of two or three they are always having fun. They are always smiling. Then when somebody suggests they play at being Doctors, you notice how their expressions change and they become grumpy adults.I have bipolar disorder and used to focus my whole attention on my illness. I didn’t enjoy anything for years, dragged myself around from day to day, and spent much of my time in the hospital.The nurse at my clinic used to ask me, “What do you do for fun?” and she really annoyed me. How dare she suggest such a thing, I thought. I have a very serious illness.I am a Victim.Then one day I decided to say goodbye to my Victim and enjoy life.I now whizz through the housework, the bill-paying, the doctor visits, the endless problems as quickly as I can, then rush into my studio and paint. Nothing gives me more joy than watching the amazing colors in my palette doing their magic.I focus on the beauty in life these days, have fun and am happy.

Let me tell you one profound secret to management:Your main goal should be to keep your employees motivated. To be motivated they have to be relatively happy.First, basic, level of motivation is money. They have to receive enough money to pay their bills and so on. But we are human beings. Most of us care about other things than just being fed.Next level of motivation is personal growth. Do they feel like they are participating in something that is enriching them in some way?And third level of motivation is feeling that you make a difference. Do they care about the project? Do they feel that by solving the problem that your startup is trying to solve, they will be making the world a better place? Or is it just dumb everyday work?You might not want to hear this, but third level is what makes people spend 80+ hours on anything (or being obsessed about becoming the next Mark you-know-who and having billions in their account).Unfortunately, there is a huge twist here. Even if they did want to spend the 80+ hours, it's of no use for you.In manager language: Paying for overtime = wasted moneyBut before I go into that, let me tell you one thing about programming:I don't know what you do in the startup, but you need to know and accept that programming is an intense activity. Very intense. "A little button" on the outside might be 100 lines of code in 10 different files on the inside. What seems easy and quick to do to someone who isn't directly involved in the development is usually not so quick.Now, about the 80 hours:The quality of someone's work is not measured by the time they spend in front of a computer. Quick example: An average programmer is focused and productive for the first 6-7 hours of work (this is true for almost anyone). Keep in mind that the spike of productivity is at the first 2-3 hours and it degrades after that. Especially after lunch. Why do you want to pay money to people who aren't productive? Here are some articles that you might find interesting: All Work No Play, Makes Jack a Dull Game Developer (Part 2) and Maximising Development Productivity .You'll find a lot of other proof that working overtime is useless. You can pay for it. You should. But it will be the same value of work for more hours.So, what can you do?Plan smarter. Focus on the most important tasks first. Remove the unnecessary secondary work. Not all features are as important as you might think initially. Research what is most important and focus on that.Reduce the number of tasks on people's lists. One of the enemies of productivity are endless todo lists. They are stressful. If it's not something that they have to do today or this week (depending on your frequency of planning) don't put it on their lists.Do not interrupt your developers. Once they know what they have to do, try to minimize interruptions as much as possible. There is something called flow. You want to keep them in the flow. Don't micromanage them.Minimize the overhead. Meaningless meetings? Useless chats? Checking email is not work. Answering boss' chat messages is not work. Being in a meeting is not work. And here comes a surprise: Chatting with colleagues about better implementation or advice on coding best practices is work.Edit: The volume of views on this question prove that this is a real and painful problem. I felt like I needed to send a louder message, so I expanded this in an article: https://medium.com/@gerrydimova/how-do-you-make-programmers-in-a-startup-work-60-80-hours-a-week-9ddc1bd6abb4Edit 2: If you found this helpful, check out the SansMagic blog where I write about bootstrapping software startups, online marketing and copywriting.Hope you'll enjoy reading.

In my capacity as editor of an EMR-oriented chain of Web newsletters (www.healthcarescene.com), I've seen several overlapping EMR models, including:* Free EMRs like Practice Fusion* EMRs with a practice management option linked or available* Cloud-based EMRs, all -- to my knowledge -- running on the public Internet* Specialty-oriented EMRs (for example, a nephrology-specific system)Having looked across the spectrum, I'd argue that some of the key opportunities exist in the following areas:Better apps and tools for users with mobile/small form factor devices: I've read about iPad, tablet and smartphone implementations which failed spectacularly because there was no native apps that suited the form factor. Doctors have told me that even on the largest of tablets, they have to navigate far too many screens to get their work done.For some reason, the big-iron enterprise EMR vendors don't seem to be bothering with this muchm and disaster ensues. Check out this case study ( http://www.hospitalemrandehr.com/2011/12/14/ipads-out-zero-clients-in-as-emr-front-ends-at-seattle-childrens/) for an example.Since I'm not a developer, I don't know what this would entail -- simply building on an existing platform or creaqting a new EMR -- but I thought this issue was worth a mention.EMRs with more security/safety features included: This is just a hunch, but my guess is that existing EMRs are focused almost entirely on clinical documentation, billing and workflow.Which is to suggest that they're NOT likely to say, flash a warning when a staffer is sharing clinical data to make sure they're following security processes and HIPAA guidelines. Not sure how that would work but it's worth a try.I'd also love to see EMRs which, if they have billing capacity, issue warnings if you appear to be upcoding.Recently, I read a KevinMD.com story (http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/04/how-electronic-medical-records-can-lead.html) suggesting that of late, doctors are often upcoding visits inadvertently.Why? Because when they cut and paste between templates, they end up with multiple visits that look the same (but may be less intense). Doctors are already being audited and fined for this, which is ultimately considered to be fraud even if inadvertent!Customizable EMRs which don't require a team of PhDs to install: In most cases, if a customer wants to customize an EMR, we're talking about a huge development project -- months or even years of work -- with an uncertain outcome. Few doctors can endure such a hassle, however. I'm not suggesting such doesn't exist (in the guise of, say, Web-based EMRs) but someone should create the truly plug-and-play medical office EMR which an IT-friendly MD or office manager could install.Hey, cars do a great job of hiding their complexity and being literally turnkey -- can't the EMR/EHR industry do the same? Or are enterprise EMR companies just getting away with shoddy work? You be the judge. :-)To summarize, I'm not sure that a completely new EMR company is needed in the marketplace, but I'm pretty confident that the overlays and approaches I've suggested need to be integrated soon. If that requires yet another EMR launch, so be it. If that company can really demonstrate, not just brag about, how safe, secure and easy to install it is, they'll be set for life.