You just need to find your Indie-Hacker-Parenting-Pattern
I am in parents shoes right now and I’m pushing myself and trying to manage marriage, baby, work, and side projects. It is difficult, the kid takes all the time I previously had for side projects and by saying this I am not complaining about it because the baby is the best thing that ever happened in my life, but this is the truth.
As a parent and indie hacker at the same time, I find it quite difficult to manage the time and get at least a few hours a week for an indie hacker project.
One day I decided to take a look at how I spend my time during the day. I would make a list of all things I do. If we exclude all the time spent on my job and with my family and a baby we get to the point of “free time”. In other words, this free time was not free as I would waste most of it and not be productive. I would waste it on YouTube, memes and social media, etc.
So I concluded if I want to make my indie hacker career work I would need to change something right away.
I have found a pattern which worked for me so far:
- disconnect from all social media
- limit time for watching YouTube/Netflix
- limit time on the internet doing random stuff
- limit or stop gaming
- limit time watching memes
- stop watching news
- remove every other distraction from my life that is not needed
In general, you want to detect the time you spend during a day and remove everything which you think is not needed. The list above worked for me, maybe it will work for you too.
My experience as a parent (3 kids; ages 8, 6 & 6 [twins!]) where I have been the primary "stay at home" parent since the oldest was born, while trying to maintain some semblance of freelance / indie hacker activities, is this: don't conclude anything and re-evaluate your priorities often. To put it in software development language: parenting as an indie hacker may be best executed as an Agile framework. Those activities you cut out today may be godsends to your psyche 3 months from now.
Nice approach, I like it.
I'm not sure if there is an emoji for agreeing 1000%.
The time crunch requires you to prioritize but someones all you'll want to do is veg out when you finally get a break.
Like you, I've built up my list of tips and tricks to help keep accomplishing things while trying to avoid burnout.
I agree, without prioritization and the list nothing will happen. Keep it simple and keep it steady.
Getting up one hour before baby wakes up is key.
Make this time sacred. No email. No Slack. No texts. Just focus on making progress. That’s what you’re after as a busy parent: progress. Make a bit of progress each day and before you know it, your project is done!
Same. I've not watched TV, movies since the kid arrived. Very little distraction.
My best hack was switching chronotype to early birdie. Was a night owl all my life, but now I wake at 4:40am and work from 5-8am for precious me-time, an opportunity for deep work, and just a saner way to start my day before the crazy rest of day unfolds.
YES! This!!!!!! I put a lock on my phone (passcode) and gave the password to a close friend. I've got a max timer for everything I tend to "waste" time on (obviously we're all human and these are really just de-stressing techniques, but when you want something and you're time crunched...). I even went so far as to put a Kaspersky on my own computer, which allows me to limit even more. Then I put limits on my access to the internet (and gave the complicated password to that same friend).