3 tricks to be more consistent with your project

Consistency is an asshole.

But it’s the essential factor that separates success from failure in a challenging project like building an indie startup.

How did we learn from Atomic Habits: everyone shares the same goals — to achieve success in some way — but since not all do, it must be more the execution that matters.

There have been three tricks, or tools, that tremendously helped me to stay consistent (=execution) with my project of developing the automatic video editor flowtapes.com, starting a YouTube channel (with 4 videos so far lol but hey), and especially doing the required but unlovely work of selling (doesn’t everyone just want to hang about in their basement and keep typing clever instructions into VSCode).

The tools are ordered by the impact they had on my work, starting with third place.

The perspective

The third one, perspective, is about how you look at the work you do. It’s about mindfulness and focusing on the process instead of the results (hashtag enjoying the journey).

This is the main weapon against two nasty modes of mental dissonance we often unintentionally slip into — 1) comparing our work to other people’s work, and 2) comparing our current state to an envisioned future state.

Both are bad, they drag us away from the here and now and leave us feeling it’s all not enough, we’re taking too long, we’re doing something wrong. But it’s just not true. Think of what you achieved today, yesterday, last week, and of the entire progress you’ve made since you started.

And that is where mindfulness, so intentionally focusing on the work we want to achieve today, helps us get the right perspective. It helps us diminish the feeling of dissonance (me <> others, me today <> me in the future). Remember:

1. We are always comparing our backend to other people’s frontend, because that’s the only side we can see (and they want us to see).
2. The only moment in which we can make stuff happen is now. The future is expectation, the past is identity. Both are illusions, we can only make progress in the present.

This mental attitude makes me not lose the fun while working through the long, slow grind of building a business. The often 1-2 years of putting a lot into it, while getting very little out. Focusing on the input and having fun making progress step by step made me work quite effortlessly through weekend after weekend and made me even use most of my vacation days (when I was still on the day job) to work on my indie startup.

But our project can obviously not always be fun. I love being in developer’s tunnel for 10 hours straight but that doesn’t sell my product, I have to go out there and act outside my comfort zone.

So fun and mindfulness can not be the only tools for rock-solid consistency here.

The mastermind

The second key tool for me was to tackle my work not solo but to interact with like-minded people who're in a similar situation as me.

This can mean to take part in discussions on Reddit, or here on indiehackers, or to chat in the comments of a Twitter post.

It makes you realize there are others dealing with the same challenges like you do. You can suddenly share your experiences with people who really understand.

But instead of interacting with a large base of people in public forums, which is often impersonal, it’s even more powerful to join forces with a small circle, like with a so-called mastermind group. These consist of usually 5 to 10 members who hold regular meetings, like a monthly in-person one, or a weekly video call in which they discuss progress, roadblocks, goals etc.

The advantage of such a group compared to participating in a discussion on Reddit is it’s way more personal. You get to know your fellows and their projects as they do yours, which creates a much stronger accountability energy than talking to strangers on the internet.

After around 2 years of indie hacking on my own, I joined forces with such a group and the experience has been incredibly supportive. Everyone is working on their own software product and we talk about issues like how to improve one’s pricing or how to fix SEO performance and we also share our weekly goals. Which creates another nudge to meet your goals as others are now asking about them. And that group I had just found here on indiehackers in the comments.

But we can take the not-work-alone route even one step further.

The girlfriend

In the same way in which a personal group has stronger accountability energy than the public internet, just one direct accountability partner has been unbeatable for me.

Because with one accountability partner you can’t keep a low profile. They will come, they will want to know if you completed your marketing to-dos yet, and they will keep bugging you until you have.

In my case my accountability partner is my girlfriend but in general it can be anyone. It just needs to be someone who is capable of riding your ass. And in case you wonder, yep my girlfriend is. I just think it’s beneficial when that person operates similarly like you do. For example by having an entrepreneurial side as well, so they can truly relate to your work and goals.

Some people also pay for an accountability partner and a weekly meeting with them, which i can imagine increases the stakes even more. But why not find someone here on indiehackers or through a mastermind group.

With my “accountability partner” I do a weekly goal session each week on Monday, in which we go over last week’s goals, discuss progress, challenges, roadblocks and so on, and set new goals for the coming week. And ride asses. These goddamn weekly sessions have caused me high blood pressure many times but they also made me accomplish what I would otherwise still be procrastinating on today..

The end

It turns out, having built the mental strength to focus on the work in front of me (the input) helped tremendously to stay consistent in the grind.

But other people holding me accountable unleashed a level of consistency I couldn't tap into while toiling away solo in my metaphorical basement.

And while it comes natural, particularly for us technical solo founders, to stay in our comfy tunnel until the end of times, stepping out of it and connecting with others over our pursuits is incredibly more rewarding.