The importance of work and not working

Success stories

After nearly 6 months of no vacation and only work, I’m sitting here in my italian vacation place and have some time to reflect on the craziness that has transpired the last few months. In January 2022 we started freelancing and it has been a rollercoaster, albeit a very entertaining one.

In January 2023 I had the idea for a podcast where I’d interview indie hackers and talk to them about their journeys. I wanted to become part of the #buildinpublic and indie hacker community on Twitter. I started with nothing but a microphone order on Amazon.

Today I have 5 regular episodes, a collaboration with another podcast and another episode waiting to be edited and released when I come back from my holiday. I’d say that is a pretty huge success. A project that just wasn’t there is now something out there in the world. Crazy.

Apart from that I’m now very close to 300 followers on Twitter. It might not be much for somebody else, but that is kind of remarkable for me. First, I have mostly interacted with people. In a friendly tone, supported them when they had questions where I could help. Gave feedback on product screenshots. Was there, when they had a bad day and vented on Twitter. I didn’t really provide much content myself, I didn’t tweet consistently and my Tweets were mostly no godly revelation. Still, nearly 300 people decided they wanted to be connected. Another success for me.

We also went public with our indie hacker project Schreiberling.app and took part in startup support programs, showed it to investors and interested angel investors that were helping us with their expertise. There was excitement, people understood the product, saw the need and the potential. We haven’t yet launched, but still I loved working on it so far. The new UI, which we will implement now will be so awesome.

Success, success, success.

But you know what? I was so tired before our vacation.

Tired of productivity

I honestly don’t get how indie hackers with children can manage anything or get anything done. I’m a childless software developer in their 30s with a UX designer for a significant other, who can help me so much with my business. I should have a monstrous energy and the drive to launch a new product every month.

But freelancing and - honestly - just living sucks a lot of energy. Working 5 days full time, as well as keep a house (semi) clean, cook food, do sports to keep fit, clean your clothes and dishes, visit family, do stuff with friends. There’s not a lot of spare time left that you can use for productive things to do.

And even when you got the time, we all have been lost on the phone or playing video games on the computer. Not all the time you have in your life that isn’t booked for something important has to be filled with MORE productive work. It’s exhausting as fuck.

Arvid Kahl has put it best in a Tweet that he retweeted a few days ago.

It was all easier, when I was still only doing my day job, going home at 5, leaving the business where it belongs. But returning to that? Never. So what can we do instead?

Allow yourself to breathe

In my podcast “Code & Conquer - The Indie Hacker Podcast” I have talked to a handful of indie hackers. Additionally I’m talking to a lot of them on Twitter every day. A picture seems to form that fits pretty much everyone.

All of the indie hackers are exhausted at some point of their journey. More than once they want to quit and stop doing indie hacking.

Some people do and return to a day job full time.

Most don’t. They find a way to deal with the stress and motivational issues. A lot of the time that means stepping back from social media and reducing the interaction with the community. Some go on a break and don’t even work on their business for a while. Some take a vacation to completely go away from the problem.

And that’s all valid and should be done. You’d think that that sentence is easy to read and understand, but for me, it’s not. I’ve been taught - and learned from others - in my life that you have to work hard, all the time. Generate more outcome, more money, more sucess. But it just starts enveloping you, consuming you. Leaving nothing behind.

So instead, I’m taking the time in my vacation and try a simple thing:

Breathing freely. Loosen the pent up muscles in my neck. Enjoy the little things.

Enjoy the little things

When I’m returning from this holiday, I don’t want to return back to normal. To my pent up perfectionism that pushes and pushes and pushes, until I can’t feel emotions normally anymore and eat junk food to numb the feelings.

I want to return to a working environment, where I take more breaks by active choice. Go out and look at the ducks in the nearby park. Take photographs like I always do on vacation. Listen to music - without doing three other things in parallel. Pick up the guitar again.

Without.

Feeling.

Guilty.

We’re not made to be always on.

We’re not made for constant stress.

We’re not made for neverending productivity.

We need to remember that apart from all the glorious goals we have for our business and our life, we need some time to rest and - yeah - enjoy the little things.

Become a calm business again

When I started immersing myself in the indie hacker community, I was very inspired by Stefan Wirth, a fellow german indie hacker. He believed in the concept of a “calm business” where you’d automate what can be automated, have clear processes for anything that happens on a routine basis and have a plan for when things change. The idea stems from Arvid Kahl again, I believe.

I’d add one more thing that is not explicitly mentioned here and that might not be part of the definition that Arvid and Stefan use.

A calm business is a business where the founders can take a break and the world doesn’t end. Not in the real world and not in their heads either.

Benedicte Raae had talked about something similar in her podcast episode with me. While she was away on a horseback riding weekend with her daughter, an issue came up with her project “Prune your follows”. People weren’t able to use it anymore. What did she do? She let it go. The world wouldn’t end. She continued on her - well deserved - weekend of riding horses. And the world didn’t end.

That’s what I want to reach here.

A world where I can take time when I need it.

And the optimism and the calm mindset to know that the world won’t end because of it.

Let’s see what I’ll say about this in a year’s time, huh?