Ask HN: How do you organize yourself as a solo founder I have a 9:5 job and work also alone on a side project where I have to do tech related tasks as well as market sale (content creation, emails and sometime calls). So, I'm asking if you are in same position as me, how are you organizing yourself to do everything ? |
I generally break it down into - [ongoing] text file with all of the todos - [daily] categorize added todos since the last day - [daily] calendar things into when I have agreed with myself that I'll work on $project - [weekly] if I find myself doing repetitive tasks, then I do a recurring calendar item with the specifics
So I only need a calendar of choice (google calendar for me), text file (apple notes/reminders), email (superhuman for delayed email functionality).
For me, I generally want to: a) put out new content once a week b) create emails c) answer calls d) build tech
All of that sounds recurring other than c), so I first time box a daily time limit each day and slowly start figuring out what goes in where.
It changes as things progress (lots of tech needs to be built, content creation for a week I"m on vacation, etc)...
Happy to chat (my info in the profile). I've done the 9:5 + side project as well as stay-at-home parent + side project + a mix and can share more of what has worked for me.
I generally break it down into - [ongoing] text file with all of the todos
- [daily] categorize added todos since the last day
- [daily] calendar things into when I have agreed with myself that I'll work on $project
- [weekly] if I find myself doing repetitive tasks, then I do a recurring calendar item with the specifics
So I only need a calendar of choice (google calendar for me), text file (apple notes/reminders), email (superhuman for delayed email functionality).
For me, I generally want to: a) put out new content once a week
b) create emails
c) answer calls
d) build tech
All of that sounds recurring other than c), so I first time box a daily time limit each day and slowly start figuring out what goes in where.
It changes as things progress (lots of tech needs to be built, content creation for a week I"m on vacation, etc)...
Happy to chat (my info in the profile). I've done the 9:5 + side project as well as stay-at-home parent + side project + a mix and can share more of what has worked for me.
You have to focus on the tasks that are most important to the overall success of your project. The problem is - that set of tasks does not align up perfectly with the tasks you personally find the most enjoyable or have the most talent with.
You have to spend some time doing things that are not pleasant to do and doing things that you struggle to figure out how to do. You will find yourself being constantly drawn to tasks that are in your 'comfort zone'. But you can't allow yourself the luxury of only doing those things and neglecting other critical items.
Divide tasks into a couple categories - Fun and not fun. When picking the next thing to work on, make sure you choose something in the latter category at least a few times each week.
- Marketing (content creation) - Sales (calls, email) - Tech (fix, improvements)
So having a to-do list for each week with these days would be good
What worked for me and my startup is committing to split testing / A/B testing of various initiatives. Before any initiative we identify what is the best outcome, the worst outcome and the probably outcomes. Then we test A strategy for a few days, after which we experiment and switch to B strategy. At the end we see which one is better, eliminate what doesn't work and stick to what does. From there it's just further experimentation and split testing of strategies until you hit your end goal.
This experimentation and identification of what pushes the needle forward takes time to refine which is why most startups (and businesses overall) take around 2 years to breakeven.
For content creation, I created this little React based Wordpress alternative that is free to use and 100% open source: https://github.com/elegantframework/elegant-cli
For emails, I use ConvertKit to collect email signups and send out updates to my subscribers.
Pomodoro method when things are really hectic and on fire. I’ll set a timer for 20 minutes and won’t leave my terminal until my task is complete or time has run out.
P.S. I have a daytime developer gig as well; and a family at night. As well as I have small stakes in past ventures that need tending sometimes.
For code, I keep a private repo.
For docs, I use grip to edit markdown to html files.
Basically, working on this has replaced all of my TV and movie watching, and some hobbies. I'm able to do about 5hrs during the week and about 10hrs during the weekends doing it this way.
I keep a spreadsheet logging all of the time I'm putting in, and just trying to stay focused - 'fake work' was really easy to fall into in the beginning but I've been much better about that recently.
Examples:
0) On my company's mobile site, the navigation header wasn't centered. I almost spent time fixing it until I realized it literally didn't matter
1) I'm using some open source code in my MVP, I almost went through and cleaned up the code - but it worked without doing so, so why would I take the time to?
One big thing for me was to keep track of small bugs/improvements that don't immediate attention as well as some larger features I wanted to add going forward. For both of those I use the issue tracker in my private repo.