How To Stay Focused as a Developer in an Early-stage Tech Company

Our two engineers struggle a lot with me and @Jordan971 pinging them all the time that this or that needs to be improved or fixed ASAP or that there is this new opportunity we need to grasp immediately.

We had to find a way where the guys can have their long periods of focus where they can go deep in the flow and really solve difficult problems. And that's really hard in a small company that fights to survive every day. But it's crucial.

We set weekly sprints. That's pretty normal. Set goals, kick it off each Monday. But what's different is that we set 20% (1 day from the week) for the engineers to focus on other things like being active on LinkedIn, in communities, and producing content.

It's crucial for small tech companies like us to generate not only the product itself but also noise and get recognized. And both Marek and Predy (our developers) can bring unique, in-depth content types that generate a lot of noise in specific communities.

This may be inspiring for both the creatives (product managers, designers, business owners) as well as for the engineers that struggle with claiming the focus in small tech companies.

btw. for anyone interested in the topic go listen to the IH podcast, it's really interesting https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/167-dhh-and-natalie-nagele-on-work-life-balance

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Our two engineers struggle a lot with me and @Jordan971 pinging them all the time that this or that needs to be improved or fixed ASAP or that there is this new opportunity we need to grasp immediately.

We had to find a way where the guys can have their long periods of focus where they can go deep in the flow and really solve difficult problems. And that's really hard in a small company that fights to survive every day. But it's crucial.

We set weekly sprints. That's pretty normal. Set goals, kick it off each Monday. But what's different is that we set 20% (1 day from the week) for the engineers to focus on other things like being active on LinkedIn, in communities, and producing content.

It's crucial for small tech companies like us to generate not only the product itself but also noise and get recognized. And both Marek and Predy (our developers) can bring unique, in-depth content types that generate a lot of noise in specific communities.

This may be inspiring for both the creatives (product managers, designers, business owners) as well as for the engineers that struggle with claiming the focus in small tech companies.

btw. for anyone interested in the topic go listen to the IH podcast, it's really interesting https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/167-dhh-and-natalie-nagele-on-work-life-balance

Johan Cutych

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6 years ago
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