How To Become Uber Productive While Working For Yourself
Wow, I feel like I could have written this a year ago -- I was doing <i>exactly</i> this. To-do lists, three coffee shops a day, 1-2 hour breaks in between, super-productive, as I've been bootstrapping my software product.<p>Then I ran into problems:<p>1) Wi-fi problems. Wound up getting a cellular dongle for the laptop, but there are still a surprisingly number of places it doesn't work reliably. When you need to push something to server ASAP, this is a killer.<p>2) It's exhausting. You only have so much mental energy. Finding suitable coffee shops online, finding them in person, exploring, walking, figuring out what to do for food -- this stuff is basically going to take up your entire day outside of work, no joke.<p>3) No "zone". If you have lots of bite-sized pieces of work to do, that don't require massive amounts of concentration, it can work really well. If you need to write a new database wrapper that is really just a sustained 8 hour stretch, you can't do it.<p>Then, there's the little details. Outlets for laptops. Spotty reception for phone calls. What to do with your laptop while you use the bathroom and there's a line, but you can't see your table from the line. The café that has the A/C pushed to arctic temperatures when you're in shorts and sandals in the summer. The café that is freezing cold in the middle of winter. And so on.<p>And above all, the last week here in NYC has been like 15-20°F. Forget about walking around outside. So I'm actually learning, there's something to be said for working from home, in a reliable environment. And then, to get out of the house, I schedule lunches with people, go to the gym, "extracurriculars" like basketball, music groups, that kind of thing. It actually works pretty well.