How do YOU keep yourself on track as a solo founder?

I take a walk every morning to get my head right and talk out my goals for the day (yes I talk to myself - people probably think I'm crazy)

I make a small goal every day to achieve. I've learned that if I focus on something non-stop I will burn out fast... usually within 2-3 months.. then I stop working on the project because I'm sick of it.

Persistence is key and I've found that balance promotes that. Exercising and taking time to myself is actually way more beneficial than I originally gave it credit for.

I've also been recording my progress on https://lonely.dev/, which is a fun way to stay motivated and connect with others.

So, I have a done a similar thing ie. took break from my agency and focusing on the indie part of my journey. What I did was create a roadmap of things I need to do now, after a thorough session of me thinking about everything with self-awareness. Then, I started making notes as per each goal mentioned in the roadmap. I am working according to that.

Deep awareness of what's going on in the head. I believe that motivation comes when you understand why are you doing this in terms of your life and your future. Not just "oh, it's money, need to pay the bills" thing but deep understanding why you need to do such and such.

When the question WHY is answered - everything else becomes easier.

@roddanan, I think it is also important to remember that things won't happen all at once and building up to a pace where you are operating at your optimal level takes some time. I have learned this the hard way in the past and now I know to allow myself the time (4-6 weeks) to get "up to speed". Organization, scheduling and setting up my calendar are all part of this process. Once I get up to that level of functioning, it is more about maintaining it from there.

Break it out into different categories and granularly annotate your to-do list.

I do code sprints every week where I spend 12 hours straight from 5PM to 5AM working on my project, but I have it broken out into different categories that usually fall into "technical" and "non-technical" buckets.

So during one stint I might spend 5 hours working on some deeply technical back-end stuff, and if I get it done, I haven't just knocked one thing off the to-do list on my white board, I've knocked out ten (set up the DB server, install the DB service, instantiate the columns, etc) which gives me a great rush. Then, I move to more "non-technical" work like fleshing out marketing campaigns, recording and projecting budgets, documenting code, sending emails, etc., all of which consist of another 10-20 to-do list items.

The reason I'm super granular with my to-do list is that it breaks problems into chunks, which I find creates better, more clean code, a more organized mind and a better knack for breaking problems down into pieces, and there's a significant psychological impact gained from knocking a ton of things off a to-do list. You stay organized and you feel great crossing things out on a white board.

Breaking it into different categories gives you a productive escape from potentially frustrating tasks that you've hit a wall on. You don't just stop working and play Animal Crossing, you move on to the next thing and come back to the frustrating thing later. It is also a useful organizational mindset.

Hope this all helps!

It helps to start small and set attainable and realistic goals, which doesn't necessarily mean 'easy' goals, but since no man is an island it helps to have support, be it one other person or a group. Studies have also shown that being able to adapt your goals to life plays a big part in achieving them. Life can, and will, throw some curve balls at you, so build in some margin or buffer when you set your goals to account for this variance. You'll be less likely to stray off course and continue to hold yourself accountable if you do this.

I like to use the EOS (Entrepreneur operating system) approach, and break down your long term plan into 3 year, 1 year, then 90 day plans each with goals.

Then for each of the short term goals you give yourself 3 tasks to do each day to move you forward on those goals, and let the rest of the your work cascade around that.

Then re-evaluate every 90 days.

As more people join the team make them own a particular goal and have them use the same approach.

Totally feel you - I think the best way for how I started to become accountable for my own actions has been through being public and open about my journey to others.

I actually started a daily twitter journal thread that outlines my progress, and also allows me to see my own journey!

I do many things. I have a to-do list in physical form (bullet notebook), an Asana board (with my teammate). I do weekly and monthly KPI calls with my partner to figure out if we're doing actionable progress. These are super important - they're not only bonding time for us, but brainstorming and accountability moments.

Finally, I use Makerlog (shameless plug) and the community helps keep me accountable while building it.

Short answer: I don't. I'm really bad at this.

I run a large business unit for a large public company and quite enjoy my job, but I still have the itch to make stuff. I've experimented with many different approaches, but none of them have "stuck" for very long.

If you stumble upon something that's working for you, let me know! I might start documenting what I try and why it works or fails.