Master generalist

Every day I switch between 2-3—sometimes 4—of my projects. A typical day might be:

• Answer support emails for Carrd plugins
• Build a quick plugin if someone asks a question that needs a unique answer
• Write daily for Lifelog
• Post on LinkedIn for Outsprint
• Build in public on Twitter for Lifelog or Plugins
• Prepare slide deck or content for consulting with Outsprint client

For people who like to focus on one thing, this is a nightmare. For doctors, they’ll suggest I go on medication probably. If I’m employed, my boss might frown upon my way of working.

But I love it.

To me doing one thing for the whole day it’s no different from doing multiple things. I can just do one thing for the whole day if work requires. My consulting projects are often like that. To be honest, I have no deep personal preference. But context switching is fun for me. Switching helps bring fresh energy. So when my schedule is free, I tend to find myself doing multi-tasking more.

Society in general seem to hate this though. It’s like how the world favours extroverts. You only read articles titled “Introvert? Here’s how to be more social and outspoken.” I’d love to one day see an article that says “Extrovert? Here’s now to be more reflective and quiet.”

Same energy when it comes to multi-tasking, context switching, and generalists. Society explicitly favours specialists and focus.

I like to say, people like me are actually specialists too. Specialists at context switching and multi-tasking. Or master generalists.

I think the neurological diversity has a purpose and benefit for us as a species. But in our factory stamp approach to work and productivity, we’ve forgotten that diversity is more resilient.

Thankfully, being an indie hacker means I don’t have to heed any of that, and just do whatever works for me.

In a way, I didn’t find indie hacking. Maybe indie hacking found me instead… because of those divergent traits.