Ask HN: How to increase self-discipline as a self-employed person?

I struggled through the same thing for couple of months. Few things that helped me get back on track

1. Define your working hours and stick to it. Setup alarms and go to work at same time of the day every day.

2. Designated working place - If you are working from your home, try to setup a place in your house that you will use only for work. Don't use it for anything else. The way it worked for me was when I got to that place, I used to switch into work time mode and when I got out of it, I will switch back personal time mode.

3. Log your hours - Use something like toggl to log your hours for yourself. Track your working hours and if you are falling on the short end, you will make up for it by working on weekends. But eventually you will try logging consistently your work hours.

In the end, its matter of creating a habit.

I've been working remotely for the past 2 weeks :)

Have a separate place in your house where you work. No browsing cats there. You may try coworking space or rent an office with a friend.

There are 3 main drawback while working remotely: - Communication (we are wired up that face to face communication is the most efficient) - Interruptions (e.g. screaming nephew) - Human interactions (going to lunch with someone, discussions about tech)

I started working for myself from home earlier this year. Although it's great in many ways, there are several challenges.

As you have noted, the lack of an external structure is a big one. Here's what I do...

First, I map out a long-term timeline, which is generally a season (spring, summer, autumn, winter). I identify goals, objectives, events, etc., and map them out in a simple open source PM software package.

Second, each week -- usually late Friday afternoon or Saturday -- I take the broad project plan stuff and create a more detailed plan for the next week.

Finally, at the end of each day I write a very detailed list of things I am going to do the next day. This includes work stuff, but also anything else: chores, exercise, etc.

When I get up in the morning, I look at my list for that day, and tackle it. Round about 5:00 pm I review the list and make the next day's list, and at 5:30 I treat myself to a Manhattan and some good music. Then it's dinner and whatever.

I also journal my work-related stuff in iPython notebook, and I keep an accounting of my hours in an Excel spreadsheet.

All that keeps me focused.

It's also important to provide yourself some relief. When you first start working like this, you realize how much time is spent at a normal work place not really working. In a normal work place there are meetings, water cooler chats, and so on. So it's important not to think that you must be productive for eight solid hours a day, because in most work environments you aren't. I plan on some reduced amount of productive time, and factor in what I call buffer time. After, say, 90 straight minutes of work, I might take a 10 - 15 minute walk around the neighborhood just to clear my mind and get my blood flowing.

That's what works for me.

TL;DR: Make a detailed daily list of things to do, and do them. Balance the list, and reward yourself at the end of each successful day.

Just love what you do, then you could experience what they call "flow" and, indeed, will need some self-discipline to remember to eat and sleep and exercise.) Self-control is mostly for struggling with boredom or fatigue.

Discipline comes from routine.

Here is a possible routine.

1) Wake up at 7 at the latest

2) Take a shower

3) Get dressed

4) Eat breakfast

5) Read mails and news

6) Join #startups on freenode to have some company

7) Say good morning to everyone there (I am blackwhite)

8) Start working

9) Have lunch

10) Back to work

11) Stop at anytime between 5-7

12) have dinner.

13) Procrastinate some more or do some more work.

14) Get to bed at 12 the latest.

Rinse and repeat....

Tip: Go to a CFAR workshop.

http://rationality.org/workshops/

1) A dedicated "work room" with few distractions is the single best suggestion I can think of. You can clock in and clock out and feel more like working.

2) Try to get up early in the morning as always (if that's an issue for you)...just having a less slackish schedule helps a ton.

3) There's tons of self help stuff out there but I think the two that help me get stuff done the most are:

- Get some notebook and every day write down the date and one big item, two medium ones and a three small ones you want to get done for the day (1-2-3) if in doubt make it LESS. Get into the habit of markering the stuff you work on and crossing it off when it's done.

- Seinfeld method (google it) for stuff you want to do every day. Basically get a calender sheet for the month, print it, hang it somewhere and put down an X when you've done what you wanted. Try not breaking the chain. You can actually practice discipline by doing some random task each day like this (I did it with "go for a 10 minute walk").

Hope that helps, being self employed is a skill that can be learned (imo). The way I look at it wandering off and getting interested in other stuff is my main problem. Everytime I "catch myself" I note it and pat myself on the back for having done one "rep". This can be reading a book and thinking about something else and not remembering what you just read or randomly checking hacker news or clicking on your mail client. [my experience comes from being a poker pro for a bit which is even worse than other self employed jobs because you don't work for anyone and the time you put in directly maps to income...and if you put in bad time it often maps to negative income :D]

This is what has worked for me for 28 years:

1. Establish a standard daily routine. Follow it every day, Monday thru Friday, without exception. This is the key. This is what you must do every day, whether you feel like it or not. Weekends can be different.

Mine (yours should be whatever works best for you):

  06:00 - work out
  07:00 - breakfast at desk, email, internet
  07:30 - start work, short break every hour
  12:00 - lunch (at desk or go out)
  13:00 - continue work, short break every hour
  17:00 - start nightly crons, LOGOFF!
  17:00 to 20:00 - dinner, family
  20:00 to 22:00 - my time, including logging back in

2. Have a dedicated work space. The desk & computer should be used ONLY FOR WORK. If you can, have a second computer for personal. Your work computer should be in a separate room with a door that closes.

3. DO NOT surf the internet, text, chat, or use the cell phone (except for work)! This is absolutely critical. If you break this rule, you will never have a boundary between work and !work.

4. Before you go to sleep write down exactly what the first thing you're going to work on the next day. The rest will follow.

(EDIT: Check out all of the responses in this thread. Most of them are excellent. Especially note all of the things that are repeated.)

Been working from home from the end of 1999 on and off up until the middle of 2012.

1) This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGg1567fzTY (almost posted anonymously). Deal with it :)

2) If you have a family or a partner. Just because you are at home does not mean "can you just put on a wash". Build rules into engaging with the family. You are working. You are not to be disturbed. If you choose to 'come out' of your office and engage with the family then that is your choice. Emergencies are acceptable interruptions ;)

3) Make an office. The kitchen table is not a great space. A spare room, an office in the garden. Some place where you can just be professional. Avoid having the office in your bedroom. You need a room you can lock.

4) Exercise. Seriously this is huge. Too easy to slob out. If you get up and work at 6am, then go to the gym at 9. Do something. Make sure people you work with KNOW this is your routine. Make it a routine. Get out of the house and do something. Do not buy an exercise machine and stay locked in the house. Clear your mind, stay fit, and go out and see the world around you. Don't like Gyms? Go running, swimming or, my favourite, cycling (it clears the mind and you can easily cover 10 miles while solving a difficult problem).

5) Get a dog :) Best decision I ever made. Get's you out and walking. You meet other people and mine keeps my feet warm. Oh and she's very good at solving technical issues. Sounds mad, but sometimes just talking about a problem to her makes it work for me (and makes me look less stupid when I have to discuss the problem with work colleagues).

6) Eat well. You have the time to make great food. Use it. Learn to cook great food.

7) Pomodoro method. Some like it some don't. (I'm not a fan.) I prefer things like coffitivity. If things start going south, try it. It's a decent rule system.

8) Skype. If there is a group of you working together, just skype each other and carry on working.

9) Socialise. Suddenly this is huge. Find local interest groups. Go to meetups. Get involved. You won't realise it, but you can get your head down and 3 months later you haven't seen anyone recently, cos y'know, work. Join clubs. Do stuff. Give yourself a reason to not be working in the evenings.

10) Monthly team days. Once a month get together and have a hackathon. Go get drunk. Be a team.

11) Use trello. I mean REALLY use it. A complicated example here http://community.uservoice.com/blog/trello-google-docs-produ... but build your own work flows that work with your team. Don't be afraid to tear down your process and start again AND most importantly, EVERYBODY buys in. Don't be the only person using a project tool. You will fail.

12) If you end up doing a 16 hour day, recognise you've done two days work. Have a reward. Go see a museum. Have a long lie in. Finish early and go for a ride. See (1) ;).

13) Have fun. Be comfortable in working on your own. Give it 6 months. See how it feels. Don't like it, then move on.

14) I may have mentioned this...exercise. Get out and do some every day. No excuse.

15) Requirements management. It's a pain to do, but clients try and be sneaky. Avoid fixed price unless you KNOW exactly what it is they want. Most don't and even those that do, change their minds. Your fixed price contract MUST include a change in requirements clause and what happens when they do. You will invoke it.

16) If your client is haggling over local sales tax....walk away. Imagine the pain you will go through haggling over signing each feature off.

17) Have payment milestones.

Right must go walk the dog :)

  If you have a family or a partner. Just because 
  you are at home does not mean "can you just put on 
  a wash". Build rules into engaging with the family. 
  You are working. You are not to be disturbed. If 
  you choose to 'come out' of your office and engage 
  with the family then that is your choice. Emergencies 
  are acceptable interruptions ;)

I'm going through a similar process right now and something that's helping me a lot is the advice in The Now Habit. It's a quick read, and at least in my case the advice is effective and sustainable.

() http://amzn.com/1585425524

In my experience I've noticed that lack of discipline is related to two things (both of them subconscious). Lack of discipline strikes me when:

1. I can easily predict what the end goal of any of my current project is ... and it is less than what I want for myself. So I procrastinate the inevitable. As if delaying it will somehow miraculously make it worthwhile after some time has passed. Waiting for an epiphany to salvage the fait accompli?? I am not sure. This is all of course subconscious. I don't like where my current project is leading me to so I watch sitcoms or come to give unsolicited HN advice. (Not really)

2. I subconsciously avoid facing my burn-rate. Burn-rate is a function of time and can be both direct financial (material) as well as opportunity costs. Facing it is single most terrifying thing for me. My unfounded fear is that it paralyses me. On the contrary.

The solution to 1 is to write down a single page or picture of where your current project fits into your bigger goals. If I can see this type of plan clearly for my current (boring) project and its global context is something I am easily reminded of regularly, I galvanise into action - no matter how boring.

Promising a deadline to your client is also a good way to work towards it. Nothing like a nagging email or phone message asking about your progress to get your arse into action.

The solution to 2 is to keep sight of your overheads by again writing a single page of your costs (burn-rate) as a function of time. And there's always a burn-rate. Planning for 3-6 months in my case seems sufficient. Make a poster of this and stick it where you can't miss it.

Hope that helps you too.

I try to restrict/minimize internet distractions between 10am and 6pm. That means I strive to only check emails in the morning and evening, no facebook/twitter/reddit/HN/etc.

I still have my ipod on do-not-disturb mode so that occasionally I can press the power button and see if there are any gmail notifications, but most of the time I can tell from the subject line that I can safely ignore said emails. If it's important I log in to gmail (with gtalk turned off) ust to answer the important email and then close it again.

Turn this baby on at 9am for 8 hours: http://selfcontrolapp.com

A plan works wonders. Try applying SCRUM on yourself. Set up sprint goals and find someone to demo for, so that you feel the preassure. Also, expose yourself. Angle your screen so that someone else can see what you're doing, so that you feel ashamed when procrastinating. If you have noone else, angle towards the street or share your screen with a partner or something. Have a schedule. Use different logins for work and leasure. I use another wm without distractionware running. Find someone to discuss your approaches with. Working alone increases risk of getting stuck. Planning also helps here. Regularly meet your parners in person, a good time is for demos. Make promises for next time. Stick by your promises. Never over-promise, never under-deliver.

This is a huge problem for me. The best solution I have found is to schedule every thing. I look ahead at the next week and what I need to get done and then schedule it in Google Calendar. I name the events 'Coding (Project Name)'. Typically I do a longer 4-6 hour session in the mornings and focus on projects that have a lot to be done on them still. In the afternoons I schedule a 2-3 hour session and work on projects that I'm finishing up on and doing minor work on. I'm a huge procrastinator ("watching multiple seasons of sitcoms" really rings true with me!) but this has helped me quite a bit.

One thing to note is that being self-employed doesn't mean you need to work from home. I always had trouble staying focused at home, and since I have kids working from home is almost impossible for me.

I now rent a desk in a shared office, and I work regular hours. I work 9-4 four days a week. I leave my laptop at work, so I can't do anything except answer the occasional email from home (when the kids let me).

It makes a tremendous difference. When I'm home, I often think of something I want to fix, but since I can't work at home, I have to wait until the next day. When I arrive at the office, I'm already eagerly waiting to get started and most times don't even think about checking HN.

(It doesn't always work. Sometimes I still have trouble focussing, but that was the same when I worked a "normal" job)

Three things work for me:

1) Having a minimum realistic goal for the day. By having that realistic goal, I find it much easier to get started, and end up achieving more than I set out.

2) Proper cardio exercise - I find just a 5k run really clears my head, makes me feel good, and relieves the physical boredom of essentially sitting down staring at a screen.

3) Breaking up working time into one hour slots (roughly), and having a decent 10 minute break to stand up, have a drink or whatever.

You could always work exclusively from a cruise ship. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6697416

I've worked from home for the past 6+ years. I started with several of the routine recommendations below (all good). What I've found over time, however, is that the routine route is -- in most cases -- simply a transfer of traditional office culture to a work environment that is anything but.

My recommendation: embrace flexibility.

Man-made time constraints are no longer part of your world (outside of deadlines). Technology no longer requires that you are chained to a desk. Shake things up to stay fresh. Don't let yourself think 9-5, 5 days. Your life is now 24x7, 365 and you are in control of how you use those hours.

That said, there are some spot-on recommendations here by others based on my experience:

* Exercise. I've taken calls on 50mi bike rides and from roadside taverns. Helps to have a buddy you can draft off during the calls.

* Nutrition. Laptop on counter. Work. Cook.

* Standing desk. You'll find yourself moving around a lot more rather than slouching in a chair and never leaving your monitor. On that, if you have the means, spread devices around your house. Mix up your screen time.

* Get up early. This one took some time, but is perhaps the biggest thing you can do. It jumpstarts everything.

* Sunday night scheduling. I believe it was Tim Ferris' 4-hour workweek that started this. Sunday night, write down what you want/must accomplish over the next week. When it's done, it's done. Doesn't matter whether it's Tuesday or Sunday.

* IM. IM. IM. Some see random IM conversations as interruptions to be avoided. They aren't. They are your watercooler, your vent, your muse. Embrace them.

Good luck! It's a great adventure.

awjr has put all the points and they are worth following.

I will only emphasize that never think you are working from home. Always assume you are working as if from another building than your own home. And always act as if you are in that building.

The moment you realize, you are in your own home, it would get harder for you to stick to the 'normal business routine'.

I have to challenge the premise that most of the responders have taken, which is that working on a daily schedule is "better".

On the contrary, I find that my work habits are a lot like yours -- and I think that's a good thing! Sometimes I will be possessed by a coding demon and crank out work for days (weeks?) on end. Other times I will putter around watching TV or brainstorming ideas.

For me the whole point of being self-employed was to NOT have to show up to an office (or home office) and work 9-5 every single day. A creative human brain is a rare and marvelous creature, and we understand very little about how it works. I think the best thing to do is to let it run around and work when it feels like working, or read a book when it feels like reading a book. I personally find my creativity withers away under a strict work regimen.

If your work is not creative and you're just grinding it out for money every day, then by all means, follow the advice in the other posts. But if your work requires imagination and making unexpected mental connections, then don't worry too much about "efficiency". As long as you're thinking about something related to work most of the time, over the long run your real productivity will exceed that of all those poor saps who measure output as a function of mindless hours in front of a computer.

Embracing your "lazy" side requires a certain amount of courage, but if you can make ends meet while doing it, you'll be happier and end up doing better creative work. In any event, don't worry too much about how most people say they do things. Do what feels right to you. Good luck!

awjr did a great job answering your question. I just want to add 2 more things that help me:

1. Get out of the house to work, at least occasionally. I find I'm often most productive working in a coffee shop or at a Panera Bread type restaurant (no waiters, free wifi).

2. Don't quit immediately after finishing off a feature. Start working on a new feature and then quit for the day. This one is big. Whenever I do this, I find my mind continuously returning to the new problem and coming up with ideas on how to solve it. At that point getting back to work the next day is easier than not.

Finally don't stress out too much about what hours you work. Sometimes I work in the morning. Sometimes I work at night. I work around spending time with my son, which is what makes me happiest. That's the best part of being self employed - having a flexible schedule that let's you maximize all of the activities you enjoy most.

I've successfully worked from home as a developer since 2001, most of which was in a 450 square foot apartment with roommates in a very noisy part of Brooklyn. Now I'm in a far more comfortable 2 bedroom with a view in Seattle with a separate bedroom as an office (and a door!), but my career was defined in that tiny shoebox of apartment.

First and foremost, boundaries are necessary. This is both for you and for the people around you. You don't have to explicitly work 8 hours in a row every day, but whenever it is that you choose to work every day, disruptions should be completely closed off.

This means if you have roommates, they need to know that when you're working, you're not listening and impossible to distract. For me, this has proven far more difficult with significant others who have lived with me. I have lost a couple long term relationships with women who did not understand this, and the woman with whom I'm now engaged not only appreciates this this very important invisible wall, but helps me maintain it.

Same goes for other outside distractions. It would be weird if your friends dropped into your 9-5 job and sat on the couch, cracked a beer and started playing video games, or if they called your office line every 20 minutes to try to convince you to head out for whatever might be going on. This same limitation needs to be set at your home. If necessary, maintain a separate lines of communication between work and personal life (phone, IM, skype, email, etc) to make sure that while you're working, you can concentrate on only communicating with work associates, and the opposite is just as important - when you're enjoying your life, leave work to your office space.

And if your home office is in a distracting neighborhood (as mine very much was when I was living in Brooklyn), turn some music on, wear some headphones, find a coffee shop, or rent some office space somewhere quieter. Depending on where you are, it's not difficult to find a company that happens to have an extra desk or two and is willing to rent one out at a fair price.

Give yourself a great office space that you look forward to spending your days in. Mine was a corner of a room that was sometimes also a bedroom and sometimes also a living room. But it was the most well kept at all times. Three monitors, a quiet and fast computer, a comfortable chair, interesting art on my wall, a great keyboard and mouse, a relatively clean desk, a decent coffee maker, great stereo system, studio-quality headphones, high speed expensive internet, and a giant roll of paper with some markers that I could brainstorm or play with whenever necessary.

I've read some other great responses here about exercise, and eating right and so on. I agree with all of the above, but I didn't bother with such things until the past 5 years. I never exercised, I worked stupidly long hours (occasionally 36 hour days), I ate crap, I partied at all hours, and I'd never set a schedule. I began changing a lot of that in the past five years or so. I now limit myself to 16 hours in a day (but usually keep my limit to 8) and I exercise more and I eat better. But I do those things because I turned 30 and realized 9 years of random debauchery and no exercise do not do much for ones health and figure. I'd be a liar if I told you I did that during the most crucially defining portion of my remote career.

As for the Real Motivation. All of the above and all the advice in this thread, and all the advice I've read elsewhere (and mostly ignored) about remote working have no competition with this one single point. What has motivated me more than anything in the world: Challenging Work at High wages. I always needed at least one of the two or the project would definitely fail, but having both ensured that I'd always find the time, energy, and space to get the work done well, efficiently, with great communication. The office space didn't matter. The noise didn't matter. The schedule _D...

Your real problem lies somewhere else: You lack motivation because your work lacks a long-term perspective. Being a freelancer who sells his personal time is not what you intrinsically aimed for. You need something which is it worth to stay home alone and this is not being a mercenary selling his time for money. And the goal can not be just 'to work from home and being free' either, you goal must be way bigger and 'working from home' is a means to an end.

Once you work on something big structuring the day with all good things like exercise, good food, socializing comes by itself and you won't need a dog or any other mumbo-jumbo, though Pomodoro comes sometimes handy just to get started and getting shit done since some procrastination always happens.

This is my experience from working home for the first years of my company (which was the most productive time of my life).