My first week of indie life is over, and so far it’s been an intense experience. It’s too early to draw grandiose sweeping conclusions, but I have a couple observations about the challenges of indie life I’d like to share:
- Planning: Not earning money means you need to be very careful with your planning. This of course includes financial planning, but also relates to planning your project along with the rest of your life. You need clear cut goals with your project, so that you know when you will earn income again. You have to know and plan the steps required to achieve that goal, and stay on top of all these things regularly. You also need to plan things so that your project doesn’t occupy your entire waking life because in the long term one needs to balance work and personal time to lead a healthy life.
- Stress: I have been very stressed in the month leading up to the start of this new professional life. I figured that it would pass once I started working but It’s been quite the opposite: stress is consuming my life currently. This was unexpected, but I am slowly learning to deal with it, by various means: doing sports and learning to mentally switch off after work help a great deal. It can be a challenging task when your home is also your workplace, when whenever you sit at your desk, you know you’re only a click away from a very long task list. The worst aspect of stress is when it keeps you up at night. However, with strict planning, you can force yourself to work during the day, and stop in the evenings to relax. It takes time, but the stress will ease off.
- Distractions: I’m naturally prone to being distracted. I would claim ADD, but that’s really just an excuse for a lack of mental self-discipline (at least in my case). Luckily, I have been able to improve on this quite a bit in the last week. Again, planning really comes in to help. Having a fixed daily morning schedule helps you get up on time. Within days your body adapts to this and it becomes second nature. Scheduling time for distractions is also a good method. I restrict my mail checking and web browsing to a few times a day, and it helps me stay focused on my work longer. On the flip side, giving in to distractions too easily will throw off your planning, and increase your stress. A nasty cycle.
I’m not really offering groundbreaking advice here, just a few observations from an indie novice. Hell, it helps me to write them out so I can remind myself to relax a little bit.
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August 15th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
From one fellow “indie” (although not in the same field) to another, congrats for taking this huge step. It takes courage to go off on your own, to pursue your vision. So, bravo.
It does pay off too, with hard work and perseverance. Keep at it, one day at a time, as you are doing. Set out your tasks, and go about doing them. Don’t be too hard on yourself, just determined to succeed, and you will.
If you weren’t a workaholic before, now you must be. In work is your salvation, seek oblivion in it. It does pay off.
It’s a big change in so many ways, so it’s normal to be anxious. With risk comes anxiety, that’s just the way it is. So, accept it, as part of the package. Soon, you’ll get used to it, and soon you won’t worry about it because you’ll find that you make your own opportunities.
Good luck, keep doing what you are doing.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Yeah, I have ADD too ^_^