How do you stay motivated and accountable when you're an indie worker?
I've been working on my own for almost 1 year now. And I love the freedom and flexibility of indie work. But I also really struggle with the black holes of isolation, distraction and procrastination that show up all too often to undermine my progress.
How do you deal with these black holes?
I miss the accountability and recognition of my existence that comes from being in a team. So a couple of weeks ago, I put together a little Facebook messenger bot to ask what I'm working on and how my progress is going each day. I've been chatting with Jess bot for a week now and it's really helping to focus and celebrate a little win every day! After sharing her with a couple of other indie peeps and them liking it too, I thought I'd make it public and get some feedback from the IH community.
https://heyjess.squarespace.com
I'd love to hear what you think of "Hey Jess", and your tips and tricks for staying motivated and accountable as an indie worker. Thanks.
I run a design-as-a-service startup that is making around $10k/month. Before that I ran an online letting agency in the Netherlands that grew to €20k/month.
What I am doing right now to improve my productivity:
I use a text file where I write the most important task I have to do for the day. It can be: "Ship X"
I use "Streaks" on my text file. This is for ongoing projects, to make sure I am consistent. It looks like this:
a. Talked to 30 new customers? XXXX
b. Wrote one new blog post? XX
c. Talked to team to remove obstacles? XXXX
(every day I do the task, I add one X)
"Yo Maxime, today I'll do X, Y, an Z. I will inform you tonight on my progress".
Last bit of advice : Don't worry about finding a productivity trick. Just do the stuff you have to do. One task at a time. Just do it. Just shut down your phone, don't check Twitter or IH (unless it's for your work), don't read articles during day (it's not work, do it weekends)
Am I obsessed or this looks like https://everydaycheck.com material? :P
Sounds like the "don't break the chain" by Jerry Seinfield
Thanks Robin, it sounds like you have great structure and habit to your daily method. Awesome! I like the simplicity and focus, and the streaks!
Here are the tools I'm currently using to stay productive as an indie worker:
I've struggled with this big time in the past.
For me, a strong routine powers both motivation + accountability.
To hold myself accountable for my routine, I have two different GoogleForms (morning + night) that are my checklist.
I'm also a fellow at a program called Recess Labs at Grand Central Tech -- which is a group entrepreneur in residence program, bringing 15 people together for 3 months to create an environment of accountability. Definitely worth checking out.
Thanks Danilo! I love your google forms! A nice way to capture streak information as well ;)
Robin touched on this, but obsessively track your progress. What you are doing is probably measurable in some way. Update a spreadsheet everyday, even if it is with a flat out zero (though, try to make everyday a non-zero day even it means sending one email, writing one line of code, etc...).
If you are anything like me, then after a few weeks, you will get a kick out of seeing your spreadsheet. That sheet will be a personal creation of its own, and we all love to see our own stuff. This will be self-motivating. You will ask yourself, "I have done this this for 28 days straight. There is no way I am breaking the streak today."
I do a weekly mastermind with two others who are working on similar projects. We share what our goals are, how we did on the previous week's goals and what we need help with. Since we're friends and working in adjacent spaces, we're able to help each other a fair amount.
I've tried masterminds before with mixed results, but this one is really going well.
That's awesome you've found a group of people that click!
I’m in an accountability group that got started here on indiehackers. I’m also a part of https://wip.chat/
I definitely find it easier to ship things consistently without a job too, so if that’s an option you could try that 😅
Just ran into a cool web-app for SELF-accountability that's in beta now -- https://thing.do/
I'd prefer a human accountability buddy ;) But this bot is an awesome step towards the goal.
Hey Joe :) Thanks, it's an interesting experiment to see how the interaction will sustain over time.
Thanks for the link to thing.do, I like the layers of additional thinking behind WHY goals are important... Will check it out.
Nice idea, but what works for me personally is social pressure to be productive. Just getting out of the house and to a place where everyone else is working (like a library) is usually enough. I don't know if a chat bot could have that same effect.
For sure, that accountability of physical presence is super powerful. I'm hoping the bot will be able to at least bridge the gap a little when I can't get to a space. Thanks for your reply :)
I will definitely try it out. I also face these black holes as I am working on my own since last three years. You can also use an app called Quotes that sends you a daily quote of motivation.
Thanks Harris, would be great to have you try it out. Keen to get any feedback, too :)
I like Quotes, but I find I get that little boost of motivation on the spot but then don't follow through...
Hi Jess, Great little bot :)
5 of us have made a little accountability group - https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/ih-accountability-partners-d9f7382d91
The plan is to meet once a week, though we've only had one week so far!
I think Jess (the bot) is really amazing, but probably will struggle to be on par with a human (at least in the foreseeable future).
Another way of keeping oneself accountable is to go to co-working spaces where there are other indie folk.
Hey Joe, thanks for checking out the bot and for testing out a few messages. As you can see I'm still figuring out the AI elements to get the right responses!! Will probably be a combination of bot chat plus me jumping in for a little while. Good point about how to sustain engagement over time.... I'm wondering how long it will take for the messages to become repetitive/annoying.
I think Jess bot will need to adapt with the trajectory of each user. I hope I can find a way to do this - I love the idea of personalising the service in this way. Thanks also for the link to the accountability group, will check it out!
Chat soon, Jess
I think we should have a Skype / Telegram or whatever conversation where we update each other on progress we do / what we plan to do for the day / what we have accomplished for the day :) Would take 2 minutes every morning and evening and would push us to ship!
There’s wip.chat
Hi Robin, thanks for your reply :)
This is the idea behind a little chat bot I made - it's based in FB messenger and sends you a morning message to get your plan for the day and an evening message to check out how you went. You can join the chat here: https://heyjess.squarespace.com
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I think planning ahead and putting social activities in your calendar helps a lot ... if it's the social aspect your after. I've noticed that I have to be more proactive about my social life when I'm working on my own.
Very true, it's definitely important to nurture that part of life too. THanks for your reply :)
actually thats quite a neat little jedi mind trick.
May the force be with you :)
(or the chat bot! lol)
You would probably think of recognition by your customers. It motivates even better!
Good luck.