Dont get stuck on details. My two phases during Product Development to stay focused.

Hi Community,

my first post on indiehackers 👋🏻 I have been working on side projects for the last 6 years (financially not successful yet). Here is what I learned to stay focused and don't wast too much time on unnecessary details while working on a MVP.

Actually for me it worked great to divide the MVP development into two phases:

Phase 1 (ramp up phase)

What I made wrong:
I am a tech guy and when I frist began with side projects I just started directly with programming. You have this "clear" picture in mind how the application will look like. A button here, a button there.

But at some point I always struggled. The "clear" picture in my mind was not as clear as I thought. In the end the result is editing CSS for hours and rearranging my components over and over. So much time was wasted to fix bad initial design.

What I make better now:
As a solopreneur one has to stay focused on the aim -no boss tells you to stay focused. But there is no focus if you don't have a goal. Thats why I define ALWAYS a wireframe in this phase first. This is my goal.

A wireframe forces me to think in more detail about the user flow, colors and things I completely have overseen.

Here is how the wireframe for my current application looks like:

Very basic, but I now know where stuff belongs -roughly.

Of course it takes time to create the wireframes, but it helps me to keep focused. And in the end I save a lot of time because I don't have to rearrange so often.

Phase 2 (refinement phase)

What I made wrong:
At some point I recognized that I struggle to keep the velocity up. The components are places and the main functionality is there. Like carving a rough figure out of stone.

But now the fine details have to be worked out. These are the small tasks like: "Make a confirmation dialog", "Fix this bug" and so on. I usually got overwhelmed by the small tasks and often focused on stuff that is not really necessary.

What I make better now:
To focus, I create a Trello board and make a card for every open task. I take this as brainstorming -nothing is discarded. I write every bug and missing feature down that I see in the current application.

After finishing with the brainstorming I label the tasks with "Prio1" (mandatory for releasing my MVP), "Prio2" (might be relevant for release product) and "Prio3" (good ideas but not relevent in the near future).

Now I really have an action plan how to move forward.

The benefit is also that I can somehow estimate what is missing and also what is already done. For me it helps to lift the motivation when I see what has already been moved to done in one day or week.

Fin

This was longer than intented, but as this flow helps me, I thought it might help also you to say focused and create a great product.

In summary it may just boil down to: first focus on a wireframe and later focus on priorized tasks :)

What do you use to stay focused? Do you also differentiate "phases" where you set your goals to focus?