Fulltime vs part-time mode

Consistency is a part-time indie hacker’s best friend. 1% compounding is the approach. Because when you have a fulltime job, being consistent working on your side project is the main challenge. You’re always tired after a long day at the office. On weekends you just wanna chill. Sometimes your boss wants you to work in the evening or weekend. Everything and everyone tries to pull you away from your side project. So to actually find pockets of time, and then to fully commit to it, is the hardest thing for a part-time builder.

Intensity is a fulltime indie hacker’s best friend. When you get to spend 100% of your time on your project, you can truly focus and get deep work done. 10x peak productivity. You’re already consistent in a way, because every day you work and every day you want to work. But intensity is also a fulltime builder’s enemy. Uncontrolled intensity leads to burnout. So for a fulltime builder, managing intensity is the challenge. Taking breaks, mandating rest, takes discipline.

Interestingly, I’ve been on both sides. Still do. Some months of the year I’m a part-time indie hacker, juggling consulting and products. Other months, after consulting gigs are done, I go fulltime on products. (Though these days, with remote part-time freelancing, I’m in part-time mode most of the year.)

Doing one code commit a day is great when you’re part-time, but under-productive when you’re fulltime. And trying to go full intensity when you’re part-timing on other gigs is a recipe for burnout and poor quality work. And believe me, I’d done both mistakes and it sucks…

And so the main challenge for me is knowing when to switch mindset.

Maybe for a start, I need to set it in my calendar… schedule part-time indie hacking mode when I’m having to juggle multiple jobs. Then when I got a window of free time (like say in December), schedule fulltime indie hacking mode. Within a week, I could also do that. I don’t have to do remote freelance work on Fridays, so I could context switch to fulltime mode over the long weekend.

Being intentional with how I approach the work, which mode I use, in the context of fulltime vs part-time, is the key.