The Flying Jalapeño Lives

When you begin a new project, you always begin with an immense amount of passion. You work diligently, economically, and with sharp focus.

Such ambition, however, can quickly subside after a few snags or if monotony begins to set in.

Unlike those that work in a development shop with several employees, we may have no one to push us but ourselves. As an indy developer, you not only need to be focused and regimented, but also must find ways to maintain your sanity.

A common solution adopted my man developers is to work on more than one project at a time. Starting a new project can feel like a mini-vacation. You get to solve new and interesting problems making work less like work (the way it should be).

Unfortunately, many of us go on “permanent vacations” (Aerosmith pun intended). It is a seductive trap to fall into. The path to indy success is littered with the many carcasses of unfinished projects.

It is a fine balance. On one hand, you need to focus and work hard to push out a product. On the other, burning yourself out can be difficult, if not impossible to recover from, emotionally and financially. It is far better to distract yourself for a few days with a side project than to open yourself to mental and financial ruin .

Like everything else you do as a micro-ISV, you need to police yourself (you are “independent” after all). Use iCal and schedule yourself a “2 day break” to work on another project.

Try to prevent boredom from setting in, in the first place. Make sure you outline discrete tasks and complete them one at a time. Completion is a reward that does not receive enough credit.

One tool I like to use is Scrumy. It is very easy to visualize your progress on individual tasks (Note: this is a scrum web service, but you don’t need to be completely versed in scrum to use it)

Another great tip from Matt Gemmell (via the MDN Show) is to create new components in a blank Xcode project. This allows you to focus on the task at hand and not let the rest of the project to “weigh” you down. There are other benefits as well which you can get from listening here.

What tips do you have for staying focused? How many projects can you successfully juggle and still make concrete progress? Let me know down below (I like cheap rhymes as well as puns).

Edited: To correct Matt Gemmell’s last name. How I spelled that wrong after hearing his theme song, I’ll never know.