Ask HN: How to increase self-discipline as a self-employed person?

Your real problem lies somewhere else: You lack motivation because your work lacks a long-term perspective. Being a freelancer who sells his personal time is not what you intrinsically aimed for. You need something which is it worth to stay home alone and this is not being a mercenary selling his time for money. And the goal can not be just 'to work from home and being free' either, you goal must be way bigger and 'working from home' is a means to an end.

Once you work on something big structuring the day with all good things like exercise, good food, socializing comes by itself and you won't need a dog or any other mumbo-jumbo, though Pomodoro comes sometimes handy just to get started and getting shit done since some procrastination always happens.

This is my experience from working home for the first years of my company (which was the most productive time of my life).

Start work at the same time and stop work at the same time, every day. Be ruthless about it, even if you start late, stop on time. Don't make excuses and don't try to "make up for it". You'll burn yourself enough times that you'll start respecting the start time and actually do it on schedule.

At first this video did not work for me too but now after a while visited again and it worked.

Scientifically : Your will power to stay focused is simply not enough (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfjvYzr-3g).

I'm a student working for different tech companies remotely. From my year long experience, all I can tell you is you need to have a routine with :

a) Not more than 50min work at a stretch (even a 10 minute break will do) b) Limited working hours (you set the limit) c) Workout (running, working out, dancing | something that works out your muscles) d) Social life (with your partner, friends, meetups etc)

Make short todo lists. Get your work done early in the morning(before your family gets up) and keep noon time for meetings and extra work that does not require focus. Evenings are great for working out.

Best of LUCK :)

I've been through the same exact situation and was able to get out of it. There are a lot of great tips here that detail how to organize your schedule tactically, but I'll give you a little different insight on how to convince yourself to adjust and work a schedule that is better for you.

#1) Recognize that the reason you are looking at other projects is because you feel free or unleashed from your full-time job and now all of the creative restrictions that you had are now gone. So, this is you acting up because NOW you have the chance to do something that you want to do, even though you still are busy with this new remote gig. You are dreaming, which is great. This is normal, and from my experience almost never goes away.

#2) Recognize that the work you are getting paid for now is your #1 priority. Dreams come second. You still have a boss, even if your boss is your friend. Anything you do outside of this work, your friend could care less. Do not lose insight of that.

#3) If you do start a new "side" project, make sure you finish it. I ran into many issues where I would start a new project, get people involved and then never finish it. It was by far the worst feeling I've ever had in my life.

#4) None of these tactical schedules that people mentioned below will work if you don't know why you continue to do browse new projects or sit down and watch multiple seasons of sitcoms. This took me about 8 months to figure out, so you have some time to go :). What is your longterm goal? To make money enough money to live comfortable or to become Oprah successful?

#5) Get help right away. By help, I just mean other people that have been through a similar situation and that you can ask for honest feedback from. Obviously this HN post is a fantastic start. Find someone you can call up directly.

If you need more insight (or anyone else on this thread), my contact info is in my profile.