

Ask HN: Self-employed - How do you keep a normal schedule? - BklynJay

Like I said in the title, I've recently left my full-time "regular corporate" job to go at it on my own as an iPhone developer, doing contract-work for small firms. Does the HN community have any advice for staying focused and keeping good work habits. Specific advice on not getting distracted (by HN, for example!) or how to manage your sleep schedule would also be appreciated.
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gexla
Everyone is different.

I have found that I can hold laser focus for four hours. After that, I start
to melt down. You might be similiar, if that's the case, then try to set your
max hours at 4 hrs per day for client work and then set your rates
accordingly.

If you find yourself working insane hours because you are getting a lot of
demand, then raise your rates.

If you find yourself having to work insane hours because you need that many
hours to pay your bills, then raise your rates.

That's the secret of being happy as a self employed developer. The less hours
you work, the more productive you can be for those hours and the easier it is
to stay disciplined. Otherwise you just become a overwhelmed, burnt out,
procrastinating mess.

Imagine disappearing into a coding loop at around 8:00 AM and then emerging
with a ton of stuff done at around noon. You have the entire rest of the day
to do whatever you like and you were probably more productive than an employee
chained to a desk for four hours.

An office is great for a change of scenery, but it's tough to justify the
extra expense. Better to get out to co-working spaces or similar for that
change of scenery. That means you are going to be working from home at least
part of the time. Setup a desk in a quiet area which you only use for work.
Don't use it for browsing, personal use, games, etc. Only for work. If you
want to do personal stuff, then grab a tablet and step away from the work
computer. When you are done for the day, then shut the computer off and forget
about it until the next day.

As an entrepreneur, you should be spending some time working on business
strategies. Take some time for some fun stuff which could also make you some
money on the side. After your four hour grind, perhaps you can kick back a bit
and work at a slower pace on alternative income streams. Make progress every
day, but don't allow the side project to drain you (which will then affect
your client work.) Rather, the side project should invigorate you. Hopefully
it will also bring in enough extra money so that you aren't 100% reliant on
client work and perhaps even allow you to further reduce the time you have to
spend doing that work.

Not all of these are practical for all situations. Sometimes you just can't
get away with only doing 4 hours per day of client work. Sometimes the client
demands more time than that. Sometimes you have to work longer for financial
needs. But I think these points are what you should strive for.

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alexmarcy
Assuming you are working at home, pick an area for your work and don't work
anywhere else. If you are on a laptop I recommend getting a monitor and
working on that so that you can unplug at the end of the day and still feel
like you are in a different environment for home stuff.

Also force yourself to work in a schedule. Get up at the same time and "go to
the office" even if that is just your work area. Take a lunch break and then
stop in the evening. If you don't force yourself into a schedule then you will
quickly get overwhelmed with the mountain of work to do.

It takes discipline but can be done and when you get the balance right it is
way better than working in someone else's office.

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zama
I had the same situation years back... As gexla said: Everyone is different.
<\-- couldn't agree more.

 _I will give you only one advice_.

Think, you are still employed. Wake up early, take a shower, breakfast, change
your clothes and start working on your favorite desk...

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jamesjguthrie
You will most likely lose (maybe already have lost) the habits you had in your
regular job.

I'm like gexla and can only stay focussed when working at home for about 4
hours but in that time I'm very productive (more so than I am in an office)

If you're the same then you should work out what time of the day is your most
productive. Mine is over lunch time, which includes the time when the baby is
having a nap.

I recommend closing every tab in your browser which is unrelated to the task
you're working on as open tabs can be distracting.

I also agree that you should set up a desk at home and only use it when you
need to work. Turn the computer off when the work is done for the day.

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autophil
Identify quickly what your productive hours are and what aren't. For example,
I can't seem to hunker down and get sufficiently focused until after lunch. I
tried battling it but to no avail.

Now, I do other stuff (laundry, errands, physical work) in the morning and
start on the computer at noon. Works much better.

Sleep? For me, some weeks I'll live on 4 hours a night, but then I get super
depressed and will jack up the sleep to 6 or more. I need to improve on this,
so I'm probably not one to take advice from.

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the_cat_kittles
Make sure you want to do the work.

