Staying productive as an indie developer

Okay. I’m using the term indie developer loosely here. I don’t consider myself to be an indie developer. But I am independent, mostly. I run my own business where I work on client apps, workshops, my books, this website, my YouTube channel, and more. So I think I qualify as indie, partially.

Either way, in this post I’d like to explore something that I don’t write or talk about much. How do I, as someone that manages my own time and work, make sure that I stay productive (in a sustainable way).

A lot of folks that I’ve talked to over the years have their own systems that help them plan, structure, and execute work. Some folks are just so eager to always be working that they have no problems staying busy at all. Others, myself included, struggle with maintaining a rhythm, finding balance, and avoid procrastinating.

Over the last half year or so I’ve been very actively trying to figure out what works for me, and in this blog post I’d like to share some of the things that I’ve learned in that time.

It all starts with a plan

The quality of work that I’ll do in a day, week, or month, all depends on my plans for a given timeframe. If I leave my Friday afternoon with unfinished business, and I spend my Monday on trying to figure out where I’ve left off and I don’t make a plan for the week, it’s likely that the week will not be very productive.

That’s because once I start working without a plan I’m in a constant mode of trying to figure out what’s next. I’ll find something to do, do it, and then spend a lot of time wondering about “what’s next?”.

Usually that means I take a break, go on social media, or watch some YouTube videos. Basically, I start to procrastinate.

I’ve tried to manage this by allocating every morning and afternoon to a type of work. I started off by separating “client” work and “blog” work. This kind of worked but it was too ambiguous. I’d spend a lot of time trying to figure out which client to work for, and what to work on. Or I’d be thinking about whether I wanted to work on an app, a YouTube video, my blog, or something else.

The result?

I’d end up doing far less than I wanted to. Especially when it came to “blog” work because there’s virtually no accountability there.

So, I solved this problem by planning differently. Instead of allocating stuff to days I’d have a list of things to do for the week. In my calendar I would still block some times for types of work, but my list is leading.

When it’s time to do client work, I look at my list. Who’s on top (the list is sorted by urgency)? That’s what I’ll work on. It’s simple yet effective.

I thought that this system would be too loose for me to allow me to properly plan but I think it’s working well. I started doing this about three months ago and I can definitely tell that my output is getting better. I’m also feeling better about my work than I did half a year ago.

So, start with a plan. Make sure you always know what’s next. Knowing what you’re supposed to do makes doing it more straightforward.

Find the right environment

I know, we’re all supposed to love working from home. I’m not great at it. I love the idea of it, but I’m really not good at it.

Whenever I work from home, there’s loads of distractions. I can hang around and watch TV for a bit. Do some work in the garden. Run a quick errand. Fold laundry. Cook.

These are all things I either enjoy doing, or things that need to get done one way or another.

Focusing while working from home can be quite a challenge for me, and I’m finding out more and more that my desk isn’t always the place where I’m most productive.

Going some place that’s not the same desk every day can be a big boost for my productivity. I’m not sure whether a change of environment just keeps my brain active, or I’m better at performing certain tasks from a different location (sometimes it’s just a different place in my house), but changing it up works for me.

If you’re feeling unproductive and you feel like you’ve got a handle on knowing what you’re supposed to do but doing it seems hard, try and switch things up a bit. Work from a coffee shop, a co-working space, a library, or your dinner table instead of your desk and see how it feels. Maybe it can help you focus on different things.

Track your work

I used to think that having rigid systems for work would suck the joy out of doing the work. The more I rely on systems and routines the more I find that I enjoy the work I’m doing because it allows me to be more focused, less stressed, and feel more in control.

By making tickets for everything I do, I have a really good sense of where I should focus my attention. I can easily measure how productive I’ve been over time just by looking at the tickets I’ve closed.

I’m using GitHub projects for tracking my work, and I’m enjoying it a lot. I can link my tickets to issues which makes it easy to link everything together. By ordering my tickets based on their priority I’m basically able to run through my list from top to bottom throughout the week and know that I’m always doing the right thing.

In addition to tracking my work through tickets, I’ve created a utility app for myself to track with Chrona I can track pomodoro timers throughout my workday. Every timer gets a description of what I’ve worked on and a rating for how well I think I did productivity-wise.

The idea is that Chrona will eventually help me gain more understanding regarding the way I do my work, and whether I have any times of day where my productivity drops significantly. If there’s any patterns in my productivity or the type of work I do I can anticipate for that when I make my plans, or I could decide to structure my work week around times and days that work well for me.

Chrona is one of four apps that I intend to ship this year with the main thought being that these apps should be useful for myself before thinking about how to make them into products. That’s why Chrona was build to be a simple app that only does a few things. It’s not configurable nor customizable and that’s on purpose. I might add more features in the future if enough folks use the app.

In Summary

Productivity is a complex topic, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned over time it’s that anybody that claims to have the answer for all your productivity woes is lying to you. Yes, there are proven systems out there. But the effectiveness of these systems isn’t guaranteed for everybody. Some folks work different form others, and that’s completely fine.

If you’re struggling to keep yourself motivated and focused, I highly recommend to actively try and understand what’s making things hard for you. When and why are you procrastinating, and what can you do to fix that. For me, knowing what’s next (planning), where I work (environment), and having objective insights (tracking) seem to be having a positive impact.

The key factor for me seems to be that there’s no point in trying to force any particular system on myself. If it doesn’t work, I try and understand why, and then I make changes to my routines to see whether things improve. It’s an iterative process, and its not a quick one.