How do you organize your day as a solopreneur?

I use Notion for my to-do lists and for setting goals and Microsoft Clock's Focus sessions to focus on my task.

Here's what I do.

1. I Set the Daily Goal of 4-5 hours and the focus sessions for 30 mins
2. Keep my phone on a flight or in silent mode
3. Turn on the focus session as soon as I start working
4. Focus and work for 30 mins and take rest for 5 mins
5. Get back to focus work after the 5 mins rest
6. Repeat this until I hit my Daily Goal hour

I've been doing this for about 5 months. I'm not perfect, but it helps me a lot.

I think this might happen in waves and depending on you mind/body state at the moment. I'm a solopreneur and still doing a 9-5 job and managing the rest of the day for Filma (my side project).

The best thing that has worked for me is building some routine and structure around my duties.

1 - I have a backlog of tasks that I prioritise ever week (always trying to finish everything that I planned in past and then moving onto the next priority).
2 - I have days and hours for certain things and I'm pretty strict with doing what's meant to be done in that window. Example: Mondays are for marketing, Tuesdays are for development (I'm a technical founder) - But within development, the first 2 hours are for bugs fixing and the other 2 for innovation and iteration. (Similar for the rest of the days in the week). The key for me is sticking to the plan.
3- Time for exercising and relax are for me mandatory (from 8pm I see no more screen than the TV with some series or anything that will keep me from deeply thinking - also out of that blue light from monitors or phones so I can sleep very well).
4 - Think about the long term and build patience. Celebrating any minor progress will keep me motivated and make me work harder on the next day/week/month.

Lastly, I've had ups and downs and periods when I could not even open my laptop, just listen to your body/mind and respond to it. If this is one of those periods, just travel somewhere, meet with people, go to some conference and you'll come back with full charged batteries and lots of motivation.

Been combining this full time and side projects for many years (almost no spare time :D) and it has been working so far. Hope my experience can inspire you! Cheers up!

Batch all calls in 2-3 hour time blocks, Friday creative work days, Monday planning and do the hardest thing day, Tuesday-Thursday are deep work days.

I've been a solopreneur and traveling the world and this mix has helped me with productivity

First of all, congratulation on taking the leap of faith into the world of the unknown!

It is not about doing what you enjoy or the hardest first. Most of the time all you need to think about is, what is something you need to absolutely get done today.

Priority, priority, priority. Most things can wait. Most things don't matter.

As solopreneurs, we have finite resources and time, and you probably have 1000s of things that you need to do. You have to identify which task is the most impactful and takes the least effort.

What are some low-hanging fruits? Are there big features a customer is willing to pay for? Setup that Ads campaign that only takes 10min? Send out that partnership email which only takes 15 min? Review on business metrics? Or, setting up Howuku analytics only takes 5 min? 😏

Every morning before I start my day, I jot down what something must go and must do today according to the impact and effort of each task.

I find jotting down the tasks easier for me to keep track of progress, especially for someone like me with ADHD and so many things going on in my head at any given moment.

Good luck!

I have two suggestions, 1 which is already mentioned and I'll just double down on it, and the other is something I haven't seen mentioned...

1. Accountability Group. I have two and that works for me for now. Most days I am not accountable to anyone, including myself. I use those days to just explore, do whatever I want. Not a set list of tasks. Instead of a daily to-do I keep a huge list of stuff I want to do, ideas I have, etc. That changes from paper to dry erase board to google docs depending on my mood. But then I have days which are extremely accountable to... a completely voluntary group of people who I find mutual respect and camaraderie with. 1 such group is High Signal, totally online, and on a telegram group. run by @petecodes

The other accountability group is in person. It's located in the area I live in at the moment. If you can't find one, make one. I used to host Indiehacker Meetups in Bali, at local coworking spaces. Then I met a group of indiehackers that meet once a week to hack. introduce each other, say what you're working on, at 9am, and demo what you made at 4pm. that's it. that's the whole structure. Nothing else, nothing more, nothing less. Ship something, today. Say what you're gonna do and then show what you did. Might be a new feature, a new side project, a new landing page, a new blog posts. make something and ship it. Even when I didn't attend in person, this kind of accountability group has been absolutely tremendously helpful day in and day out. Scheduling my week, my plans, my life, around that 1 day a week to meet up. Knowing that there are answers for the weirdest questions about business. Over the past few years this group has expanded and contracted and moved out. Lots stay in touch around the world, and meet up. Even if you have 2 friends who do similar stuff to you (hack/make stuff) then I'd recommend starting this kind of accountability group. Just once a week.

2. Accountable Places. The other recommendation I have which nobody else has mentioned is being accountable based on your place of work. This is probably the least talked about but most important thing. Your physical space makes you do things your mind could never get yourself to do. Create different spaces, different angles in your own home/apartment. You don't have to go far to get a different "place" or "space". Litearlly turn your desk around, or move a monitor. Or sit on the floor. Try different work in different spots.

If you can, travel 5-15 minutes by foot somewhere and do 1 thing. or 1 type of thing. a coffee shop, or a library.

if you can, travel 5 - 15 minutes by car/bike somewhere else.

If you can, travel 20-30 minute to a cafe, restaurant, library. Charge yourself the cost of the gas plus meal or coffee, and make sure you do enough "billable" to yourself hours to make up the cost. That could be writing an invoice, doing reminders of unpaid invoices.

Tying cost to getting revenue helps some people. I would go get the Biggest Breakfast on the menu and then spend 2 hours on the highest revenue work I could find. Probably following up on unpaid invoices. Knowing I'm "billing" myself $10 or $30 and gonna make by the end of that 2 hour session about $100 to $1,000 (depending on the invoices)

or knowing I gotta write 100 promotional tweets for the next month. So i would go to a place that's my "Promotion Place" somewhere where the energy is about writing and selling and promoting.

Here's an extreme example. I wanted to redesign my website. So I went to a Design Library. it's called TCDC in Chiang Mai Thailand. an alternative space to work, not a coworking space, but literally a design library. I'd pay for the day pass and then go grab 10 to 20 books from the shelves to help me "design". Flipped through TONS of examples and made notes in my notebook and got to designing that day. MUCH different experience than sitting at my desk and scrolling through landing page example sites.

Even if you can't go out, can't afford eating out every meal or every day, then make your home space have different "places"

Create a code corner which is dark and focused and quiet. Easily move/pivot your monitor if you code with it, move it out of the way to write. (full screen google docs)
Sit on the floor to scroll. Get a big pillow to lean on, sit on. Small pillow up against the wall with your laptop on your knees. Get speakers and earbuds, different sound scapes for different work. Blast real cafe sounds from the speakers. use binaural music in your earbuds. Your audioscape is as important as your physical space. Check out Coffeehouse a substack of real cafe sounds coffeehouse.substack.com

But if you can, make a day or two a week to get outside and do something different in a different place/space. With different people or the same people.

Go to a cafe to do collaborations. Go to business center work space to bill clients. Go to a library to do content writing/research.

Rent a room in a business center, a hotel, a coworking space. for 1 day a week. Split the cost among 5-10 friends and just hack all day in the room. Sometimes you can get these rooms for free as you bring 10 people who will consume coffee/food. Or just pay a small fee. Our group usually can pay $8 a head. that's $80 for a day for a meeting room with only 10 people.

Hope that all helps.

Being a dad of a 2yo daughter and working from home, I rarely work more than 2h in one sitting.

I make sure to plan the next day every evening and to not put more than 6h of work into my schedule.

The tasks with the biggest impact on my bank account go first, everything else follows.

Work less. Honestly. You'll find that with less time to achieve your tasks, you'll complete them faster. I've managed to cut 1-2 hours from my work day by simply giving myself less time to do things.

I have habits I must complete every day. The most challenging task for me was to balance product (coding) and marketing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDL2LXF1Zy8

I had this exact same problem when I first founded my company. After doing everything you've tried and more, my wife finally pointed out that I wasn't accountable to anyone and it was easy to let myself down but I'd never consider letting a boss or my partner down, for example. I found a mentor as part of a Mastermind group and they have been my accountability partner for almost 2 years now. It's been a huge help and I'd recommend trying the same.

I'm a consultant so I have deep work to do like analyses and software development, but also many other activities like requests, sales, marketing for customers, legal things ecc.

Planning and executing are two separated things. During execution I know that's better to have only the top relevant things under the eye and nothing else.

I optimized a method with these constraints:

• A new task must be inserted only one time in a single source of truth.
• Daily review have to be done in about 10 minutes.
• No weekly review.
• The to-do list must be attractive and focused.
• It's not important that it takes 10-30 seconds to insert a new task, because I read much more than I write.

This is my setup:

• OKR: I update it every quarter. Each objective has also a recipe to make it happen, like "Do 5 sales call every Thursday" or "Do at least 5 minutes of exercise every day". Tools: a dashboard on Notion.
• One inbox: I have just one physical inbox on my desk and one virtual inbox. Tools: Telegram is awesome as virtual inbox because it catches notes with an automatic date and file storage, synced on all devices.
• Tasks and reference material: I store tasks and notes on specific apps. Tools: Asana for tasks with a business account, a personal one and few accounts for some of my customers; for support material I use Notion but also GDrive. I use due dates on Asana for remind me when I like to do the tasks, deadlines are set as milestones only.
• A single theme per weekday: each weekday has a single theme, like bookeeping, sales, coding and side hustle. This helps to prepare the to-do list.
• The calendar: I use the calendar just for appintments. Tool: Google Calendar without the Tasks plugin. I don't link Asana or Pipedrive calendars because they will make the calendar crowded and wihout focus on priorities.
• The daily to-do list: I have a Notion page for each day of the year. This daily page contains the 4 KPI I use, the year and the week number. The week number is for summarizing my KPI. The content of the page is a list of the tasks of the day divided in sections: routine, urgent, vital, important and nice. Each to-do have: the next action, the goal and the link to the reference material. At the end of the list I put the new tasks popped up during the day as bullet list, so I know that I will have to transfer them on Asana or Pipedrive if not done today. I have a template for each weekday with pre-compiled routine to-do items in them.

The dashboard on Notion it's just a page with the current OKR and the daily pages. No link to projects, tasks or other things because focus is the goal of the page.

How a to-do is made:

• It has a to-do checkbox.
• It starts with a succint next action for creating momentum. Often it's just the first simple physical thing that can be done in 5 minutes or less, no matter if the task or project is a multi-hour one.
• The next action is followed by a succint name of the result to reach or the project.
• There is a single link to the reference task (just the link to the Asana task).
• There can be more than one to-do for the same project, these are just separated to-do.
• Both business and personal to-do are mixed in the same list.

Rule: I don't store tasks on agenda or to-do lists because are volatile. If I have an activity to do, first I store it on Asana then I mention it on my to-do list.

Example of a to-do item in the daily page:

[ ] Add email column to the user's table « Customer A project 
   https://app.asana.com/0/123456789987654/987654321123456

How I run it, each morning:

1. I open the Notion dashboard to remind me the OKR and complete the KPI of yesterday.
2. Then I create a new daily page using the current weekday template.
3. I go through my tasks on Asana and Pipedrive, sorting by due date, for compiling a short list of tasks of the things to do today on the daily page. I check tasks done and reschedule missed ones. Sorting by due date make this very fast.
4. Then I prioritize the list.
5. For bigger tasks I create an appointment on the calendar using the same format for to-do.
6. Finally I start executing following the calendar and the short list by priority.

My phone has the minimum notifications as possible, and during tasks it's often set as silent.

A productive day begins with a clear understanding of what has to be done. Create a to-do list. Don't leave out administrative jobs like bookkeeping or payroll; this should contain all of the good and bad tasks that are assisting you in keeping your business running.
Never choose more than three big projects to focus on in a given day. You might only want to select one, depending on the scope of the project. All other initiatives or smaller tasks, such as responding to emails, can be scheduled around these top priorities.

1. Juice out 3 oranges + 1 lime and make coffee
2. Read a book
3. Meditate
4. Read my long-term goals and daily rules
5. Plan the working day (it's usually 9 am)
   ...
   work
   ...
6. Complete my routines (learn Indonesian & Korean, stretch)

I'll also squeeze a 2h surf session either early morning or after work.

This is something I struggle with as well.

What works for me at the moment is to do weekly planning instead of daily planning.
My approach is:

• plan the entire week ahead;
• as I work on things I check them off the list;
• today I get to work on whatever I feel like working.

In-depth daily planning does not work for me...

Good luck!

Start a time calendar.

Note what you did every 30 minutes. At the end of the day review it, you'll see where you waste your time. If it doesnt push the needle forward then stop doing it.

My recommendation is to begin by making a rundown of all that you figure necessities to happen today, and afterward separate it into more modest undertakings that you can achieve in a little while each. Like that, you'll feel like you're gaining ground in any event, when it seems like a few days are delaying longer than others.

Biggest thing for me has been finding ways to limit context switching and time-boxing efforts on any given task. The latter was the hardest to put into practice for me over the years, but like everything it just takes practice. Everyday I start with a list of the 3 things that have to get done today, the things that are blocking others, and then everything else. Every day it gets reset, and I force myself to carry over the items from the day before.

The feedback loop here that's self-enforcing for me is if I've written something down every day for 10 days and it's still not getting done, it's just not that important. There are exceptions for sure, but as a default rule, it's more often right than wrong.

Everyone has their opinion on what works best for them at the end of the day. Find something that works for you, experiment, and change as needed. And for some, changing the routines every once in a while is part of the enjoyment to finding the right setup that works.

I especially find it hard to stay motivated when you have to do less interesting tasks like marketing. I keep postponing them. I do find that going to a co-working space at least 4 times a week helps. I find plenty of people to discuss my project with and even some that have expert knowledge in my area.

Besides that I might hire a person to help with marketing, I found one that only charges 15€ per hour. For marketing and motivation that could be a big win.

Currently, I am working on multiple forums and web apps. My daily life looks something similar to this:

• Wake up at 7:00 AM and have some tea or milk [depends on my mood]
• Check my search console, analytics and google Adsense panel
• Write a blog or a web story, OR add a new feature in my web apps
• Work for the promotion of my new forum site: https://liveinabroad.com/
• Make some tea, and have a break

Weekdays most of the time in marketing and weekends in development work

@PavatiDasani

working daily starts with the analytics of our product https://churnfree.com/ plan tasks and start implementing.

• take some exercise
• work on product 7-9 hours
• talk with friends 1 hour
• play games 1 hour

this is a simple routine to follow!

Here's what I do:

• I write to a discord channel about my tasks today. It's usually like my own stand up meeting. Something I picked up from working.
• Since I am a developer I file issues to myself and assign them to myself. I try to organize new ideas and avenues to explore using Github Issues, you can use anything other thing as well.
• I apply to a lot of different conferences to talk about my stuff. The talks actually give me a deadline to complete a working demo and get something out to the public. It actually really helped push me.

Clockify is a really useful tool for this. You basically write down what you are doing during periods of time. It helps you to see what tasks take the most time, then you can ask yourself why and if you can somehow reduce the time you spend on them.

In addition, it helps you identify growth blockers. If you perform a task regularly, it should reduce in time, right? If you see that it's not, you should identify why, maybe you should delegate this task further.

It's also really rewarding to see how much you've done throughout the day. So at the end of the day you are left satisfied with yourself.:)

A good way for me is to work with deadlines.

We set deadlines for different tasks for the development of era.sh (a markdown note-taking tool for developers).

We have 4 categories:

• App Development
• LP Adjustments
• Marketing
• Various

Each of them has some priority tasks and non-priority tasks.
I try to fit the priority tasks into my daily schedule, and if I have more time, I also do some non-priority tasks.

That made me super productive even if I have a full-time job (50-60h + per week).

My advice is to start by making a list of everything you think needs to happen today, and then break it down into smaller tasks that you can accomplish in an hour or two each. That way, you'll feel like you're making progress even when it feels like some days are dragging on longer than others.

You could also try scheduling time in your calendar for each task.

I like the idea from the founder of BannerBear - one building/dev week for every one marketing week!

Otherwise for me - on the building side - initial morning sprint to test and update UI, then evening sprint to work on a major piece/upgrade. For sprints, find that corner of the room where you can crack out 4+ hours of deep work (and for me, the prerequisite 1-2 hours of time-wasting to get into the zone 🤪)

I had a problem concentrating when I was working from home. I found that renting a desk at a co-working space really helps me stay focused.

This is an interesting watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0&ab_channel=CarnegieMellonUniversity

You can find transcripts online if you don't want to watch the whole thing

No need to overcomplicate it.

Just make sure you do deep work on strategic things before lunch time as many days per week as possible.

Strategic = important & not urgent in Eisenhower matrix terminology

Great post and so many good approaches!

To some degree I think it’s important to just apply a method, any method. I find mine is constantly evolving, and I go through phases and cycles. Some times I need a daily to-do list, but at other times I deep dive into something for a week or two and minimize everything else. When I get stuck in an unproductive rut, sometimes I find it’s because I’m not following my own method. And sometimes it’s a sign that it’s time for a fresh approach to how I organize myself.

There’s one approach I’ve continued and developed over a few years now. I keep a journal with a running to-do list in a doc. I actually didn’t realize when I started writing this how very specific my journaling has become! The elaborate details follow:

I use a section for each day. Every day I copy the to-do list from the day before and then clean it up. So today’s entry always has my agenda and up-to-date priorities for the day.

And I clean up yesterday’s entry so it keeps a record of what I did. I find it helpful to review yesterday for a few reasons. It adds continuity, and context for setting today’s priorities. It’s also good to acknowledge progress. Finally I find it establishes the right mindset for the next step, motivation.

The entry for each day is also where I record any notes and scratchpad work I produce during the day, as well as links to other work product for the day, like spreadsheets, other documents, code commits, etc. I end up with a lot of detail I can easily find and frequently reference again later. Everything is structured with heading styles, so there’s also a scannable TOC. Like this:
H2 October 13, 2022
H3 Agenda (including the running to-do)
Generally 5-20 bulleted items
H3 Focus area 1
H3 Focus area 2
etc.

I find periodic reviews useful, and can simply scroll through the days recounting what I did across different threads of work and research and thinking.

I also keep a section for tasks that are not active but I’m not abandoning yet. Every 6 months I start a new doc carrying over the daily backlog and the stale backlog.

Timeboxing is a must. Read "Indistractable" by Nir Eyal for more context on how to apply this technique correctly. What you are truly missing is intent rather than method (you already seem to know them).

Also, get some accountability either through another founder or friend that is on the same path. The community here is excellent for this (add a product to your profile and build in public). WIP (https://wip.co) is also great.

Such a Great Question. This discussion will many aspiring soloprenuers

I keep a quarter-long calendar, focusing on week-by-week. each square is a day, and in each square I list my tasks that I need to do for the day. any tasks I don't complete get booted to the next day. it helps me not lose track of tasks I have to get done down the line

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