Between all the talking, commenting, tweeting etc how do you actually get any work done?

To be totally honest, I currently operate with a “I’m not talking about building my project because I’m too busy actually doing the work..”

But that also has some attitude with it (admittedly).

I’m focusing on staying hyper local at the moment, so anything I do related to marketing is through customer discovery - which is super slow for me, and way less fun than actually building my project.

I haven’t figured out a great balance yet, but I totally get what you’re saying!

I try to handle it like I handle all my other tasks, by scheduling it into my day and ignoring it until it's time has come for attention. Its a love/hate relationship, but is certainly required today. Plus, its a good way to shift gears out of heads-down work and into something less demanding as a little break.

I'm a marketer but I still feel this pull of trying to find balance.

Right now what's working:

• Focus mode on my phone during work hours.
• Zoom-free Mondays and Fridays for actual work
• only taking meetings from 10-3pm T-TH so I have mornings and late afternoons for actual work
• Engaging during my morning routines
• time blocking work/build/project time
• Having set habit stacks for engaging (Twitter, then IH, then the 2 slack communities I'm in)
• Only talking when I have something worth saying.

Wondering the same myself.

I used to work on projects without talking about them.

Now I started sharing my progress, but noticed I'm barely spending any time on the projects.

It's a skill, really. You have to learn how to block out all the noise and focus on what's important.

I force myself to do it. I timeslot 1 hour where I just build and do nothing else.

If that doesn't work, you may wanna try introducing some accountability (Stickk is an easy way to get started). If you have friends you think could keep you accountable, try that.

I can definitely relate! Marketing is so time-consuming; it's not just a case of creating a post, it's then engaging with other people's posts to build your audience. I find it exhausting, and as you said @simonbarker, distracting. If anyone has any tips on how they split their time efficiently, I'd be really interested to know!

You already spotted the issue, so you're halfway there to finding the solution. Oftentimes, the solution is right in front of you. We as humans tend to make problems bigger than they are because we tell ourselves rational stories about why something is the way it is. We dramatize or romanticize. In reality, when looking at it objectively, there's always 1 root cause. In your case, I'd say it's not even trying to get the word out, it's FOMO. You fear you miss out on growth IF you're not constantly trying to get the word out. But now you're letting that fear control you, instead of controlling the fear. So flip the script. Tell yourself, "I control my time, so I will decide when I do what". Ask yourself, what do I need to get out and what do I need to make? Once you figure that out, you simply make it about time management. Determine how much time will go towards marketing, and how much towards making. Divide them further up into recurring tasks so you don't have to constantly make decisions on things you could decide beforehand. Be pragmatic and learn that there's no such thing as controlling your output. There's only ever the control over what you do.

The organization I am working under has only two person in the team aka the founder himself and me.

The best decision he took while developing his product was to find a Marketing intern. I am the said intern.

While I learn and look after lead generation and marketing (mostly), he can easily focus on developing the product.

So according to me, this was the best laid plan to be able to focus on right things at right time and also getting work done uniformly.

It’s not easy and very time consuming. You have to be obsessed with posting and building at the same time.

I’m guilty for building without posting more than I should. It needs to become a habit. When your code is compiling… tweet

When you have a new feature, make a quick promo video like I did here https://twitter.com/michaelaubry/status/1519744955631112192?s=21&t=sBSUqlMUoIsje2XdJhB-lw

Even a quick loom video which is less polished got more engagement right after I pushed my last commit last night https://twitter.com/michaelaubry/status/1519550184992088067?s=21&t=sBSUqlMUoIsje2XdJhB-lw

I still have a lot to figure out but try to incorporate it into your daily coding habits

In case it helps to hear another perspective, my cofounder and I have been spending 1-2 weeks on the product and then 1-2 weeks on marketing. We are still very early in this journey, though.

I'm just observing right now. Everyone says it works when you do it like that. That's how I see it. Please let me know if you find the solution. :)

I'm trying to dedicate morning to marketing and the afternoon to "work".

Replying to your post at 6:30pm may show you how well it's going.

Stay Focused is a solid chrome extension for setting a time limit on chosen sites.

Apart from that, I don't receive any notifications on my phone and I keep it locked in a cabinet when I'm working. I do 25 minute sprints and then get to take a break for 5 with a half hour break every three sprints.

I use these two Chrome extensions to help me with time management
(1) Rescue Time to see how productive I am being
(2) Website blocker to block websites like Youtube, Twitter, etc for a certain number of hours a day. For example, I'll block Twitter between 7am et - 3 pm et bc I tend to get the most work done early in the morning and tend to lag in the afternoon.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rescuetime-for-chrome-and/bdakmnplckeopfghnlpocafcepegjeap

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/website-blocker-beta/hclgegipaehbigmbhdpfapmjadbaldib

Hey, I am a product designer and work freelance for clients. How I manage my time is using motionapp.com. I connect my multiple calendars, give it my tasks and it plans my day for me. I also use Ugmonk's analog https://ugmonk.com/pages/analog to write down my tasks motion gives me to keep hyper-focused. I also avoid watching youtube or listening to music. Instead, I listen to endel (https://endel.io) which actually helps me keep focused.

I wish you the best of luck!

Chris Carter
chriscarterux.com

I block chucks in my calendar around the task. Min 2h to get in the zone. Force no social media or distractions.
Wait... I need to be working right now.

I am also trying to figure out a strategy for balancing all things out.
So for me, I am juggling all things together as I am into a full-time job as well hustling side by side with my company. I have divided my whole day into sections wherein I used to accomplish the works assigned as per the priority. Also, my wife is also now helping me with the Operations and finances of the company.

Delegation and only that. I think that it is not possible to work ideally in unfocus. When you have to write back to the community, reply to social networks, and control it all, generate ideas for content. You'll explode!

I can also relate with this Simon. I'm getting back in the game here and this time I'm going to be careful for it not to be all-consuming. To do so, I need balance and already I'm feeling too much of a pull and its mostly down to exactly what you've stated here 👆

I'm trying to focus on the audience building first, but at the same time, I can't help but want to get started on some product work. At the moment, it feels like I don't have any time for the product between engagement and my day job!

Like others have suggested, I am going to plan out my time engaging, and limit it to an hour or 2 of focused time each day. I'm considering app blockers on my phone to instill the discipline!

Anyway, as you will have already seen from your comments, you aren't the only one that feels this way. Good luck on your journey!

I daily invest some time in community building. Apart from that time I stay away from all platforms and social media to focus on the actual work that needs to be done.

Here's a different perspective that should help you - though you might not like it :-) Read it thoroughly though because I know for a fact that this information has changed the lives of many a successful entrepreneur.

Talking, tweeting, and commenting is your work. It's actually the most important work that you can do.

It's so tempting to believe that building your product is the most important thing in the world, especially if you come from an engineering/product-focused background. But it's wrong.

I know, I know, it's heresy to say things like that but your product doesn't really matter that much - at least at first. Marketing might be less fun or exciting to you, but it's actually the most important part of any startup in those early days.

You can have the world's greatest product, but if no-one knows about it then you won't have a business.

Inversely, you can have a not-so-great product (or none at all) and still have a thriving business with customers that love you.

Note that this isn't an excuse to have a terrible product, you will eventually have to make your product great, but this best time to do this is when you have a thriving business with revenue coming through the door and (hopefully) employees that can help you actually do all the work necessary without working yourself into an early grave.

Where's the proof of this?

Take HubSpot for example. It grew from $0 to $29 million in revenue and built a passionate customer base with a product that, in founder Dharmesh Shah's own words, sucked.

Of course, they eventually needed to fix that - something that Chief Product Officer David Cancel did when he joined in 2011. But it wasn't necessary to reach $29 million in revenue and build a thriving and very happy customer base.

What HubSpot did is the same as what Apple, Salesforce, CrossFit and a number of companies in loads of different industries did - they sold a belief, a BLUNT belief, what I call The BLUNT Method. I wrote a book about it (you can check it out at www.thebluntmethod.com) and here are two articles:

The first talks a bit more about what I just discussed here - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-startup-lost-2-million-how-avoid-same-fate-chris-monk/

And the second explains the strategy in more depth (as it's far too long to post in a comment!) - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-great-products-hurt-companies-create-them-what-do-chris-monk/

Hope that helps!

Cheers

Chris

It's stressing, truth be told.

You tell me! I’ve been posting a lot lately (here, dev.to, Twitter, around 6 blog posts this month) while adding features to my SaaS kit and it’s indeed exhausting 😖

Good topic!

Definitely still a work in progress for me, but I have been trying to refine my system to better manage my time.

Here's how it currently looks:

• Every Sunday or Monday morning I spend time planning out my week. This means that I create a weekly document with my top tasks I plan on completing this week and also any scheduled events (I used to do this in Notion, but I've been trying out Tweek).
• I break up my work time into 1-hour focused sessions and check them off as I complete them. My goal is 4 1-hour working sessions on an average day. I do this so I have a clear point where I can feel like I have done "enough work" for the day and I can actually enjoy my downtime at night.
• I try to regularly reflect on where my time is actually being spent and question if that is aligned with my goals and values. If it isn't then I make plans to adjust for the following week. I try not to judge myself for it, but instead focus on learning and making improvements. That mindset has helped me a lot.

It is exhausting. 😆

But I try and batch my activities as best as I can.

I dedicate my early morning to deep work when my brain is most fresh (code, design, etc). I then timebox marketing activities in the afternoon.

I find that with marketing, because it can be so varied or happens on social, that a clear "todo" list before hand keeps me on track. It's too dang easy to rabbit hole / wander.

For example, Monday's marketing todo list was:

• Reply to 5 "requests for website roasts"
• Engage with 10 comments in Slack & Discord communities
• Send at least one tweet (lol: https://twitter.com/twanlass/status/1518626219897458688)
• Submit landing page to 2 inspiration sites

Also... I'm marketing right now 😁

Have fun! ✌️

Haha, thanks for bringing this up. The good thing here is that, as entrepreneurs we try to eliminate things that waste our time. Things around us, intensely demand our time. I personally, constantly have to remove destructions. Delete apps, clean my Trello, set phone usage limits, don't bring phone to workplace and etc. Currently, I only have Twitter. Recommend deleting as many things as maximally possible.

Couldn't agree more! Just joined the Twittersphere and spending way too much time on it than I want to. I've now set 2 limits:

• A time limit that lets me use Twitter and any other marketing-ish platform for 15-30 minutes.
• A count limit that lets me only visit Twitter + etc 3 times.

It's helped a lot! Would highly suggest :)

Time Slotting might perhaps be of help at least in giving you brain a rest between switching and allow you to make sure you have defined hours to work ! Hope this helps 👍

Haha, I feel you.

I just try to be as consistent as possible. I have hours locked in for building things.
And hours locked in for talking about those things. I think this whole cycle isn't supposed to feel easy, so knowing that I just go through it.

I've seen others do build week/ marketing week. I like it a bit more dynamic, but essentially it's just alternating between the two.

Now I'm on marketing hours so funny The Office voice if this helped you don't forget to check out https://unblokd.com where you can find devs to mentor you, and if you're a reader check out https://hardcover.app. Also, looking for a logo? Definitely check out https://supereasy.club and get a custom one done for $299 🤯

I try to set times when I only focus on commenting and tweeting and other times when I am fully focused on programming/building. It's more easier to reach a flow state that way because I'm not jumping from different things.

Two things:

1. marketing is building something. It’s not the tech or product work of course, but it helps you understand what to build. I remember when I worked in-house and realized I was always in meetings, but then realized that meetings were where I got things done (I let a department).
2. time box and set up processes for when and where you engage. I used an app called Freedom.to for a while to control when I could access things. It helped.

Sounds like you may need to shift your mindset around what is and isn’t “the work.” It’s all the work, my friend. Good luck. Keep going.

Timebox aggressively and be intentional.

Decide how much time you want/can afford to spend on a platform and enforce that timebox. I tell my phone "Hey Siri, timer 30 minutes" and when the countdown gets to 0, I'm done. No matter what.

Define the goal of your timebox and don't allow yourself to do anything that's not aligned with it. It's easy to get lost on an interesting tangent and waste time on that. If that happens, save the link to your read-it-later service and go back to your goal. It's a bit like meditation.

I use a program called Centered. It's been a game-changer lately, especially its feature that calls you out when you start getting distracted by Twitter, emails, etc.