How do we maintain focus and order when everything else is going to hell?

There are two skills we need as Founders trying to lead chaotic startups — the ability to solve problems and the ability to focus our attention. As it turns out, the ability to focus our attention tends to be the most important.

You see, chaos is pretty much standard fare at any startup. Yet, if we're not able to organize that chaos, no matter how capable we are, it will consume us. When everything is in chaos, we need to be the steady hand that guides us through the storm, even in cases where we're the only person in that storm!

Over time we start to realize that we can't "end chaos," but we can learn to control it in a way that allows us to systematically assess and...