Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast hosted by me, David Smith.

00:00:05 ◼   ► I'm an independent iOS developer based in Herndon, Virginia.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Developing Perspective discusses news of note, interesting things related to iOS, Apple, things like that.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Things of note to someone who maybe is an independent iOS developer or Mac developer or just interested in these types of things.

00:00:19 ◼   ► This is show number 31. And today I'm going to be talking a bit more on a, I guess, maybe a more personal side rather than a

00:00:26 ◼   ► more technical thing.

00:00:28 ◼   ► So one of my favorite podcasts that I listen to a lot is build and analyze which is a five by five show with

00:00:34 ◼   ► Marco Arment and Dan DeBenjamin and one of my favorite episodes is from way back when it uh

00:00:39 ◼   ► Was first starting out and was called cycles of motivation and which I'll have a link to in the show notes

00:00:45 ◼   ► Which is a great episode. It's a fairly timeless one. It's not one of the more topical shows they've done and

00:00:50 ◼   ► The I remember about it specifically as he was talking about Marco that is was talking about how

00:00:56 ◼   ► Now, he goes through on a more daily basis different cycles of motivation, different

00:01:02 ◼   ► levels of engagement, interest in what he's doing, how he's doing it, and how that kind

00:01:08 ◼   ► of impacts and focuses on how he chooses to work, how he tends to work, manages time in

00:01:14 ◼   ► his day, so that if, for example, he gets really engaged and interested over late at

00:01:20 ◼   ► night, he'll work late at night, and if he's not really interested in the morning, maybe

00:01:22 ◼   ► he won't rather than kind of being like, "Oh, well, I'm going to work 9 to 5 because that's

00:01:26 ◼   ► what I always do."

00:01:27 ◼   ► I always thought that was an interesting thing and kind of very true, I think, for a lot

00:01:31 ◼   ► of creative work.

00:01:32 ◼   ► And what I was going to talk about here is rather than sort of cycles of motivation,

00:01:37 ◼   ► maybe it's even taking one step up and kind of building on that concept and saying cycles

00:01:41 ◼   ► of inspiration.

00:01:43 ◼   ► And specifically, it's something that is topical and timely for me is the way that I kind of

00:01:49 ◼   ► find myself, my attention, maybe it's even cycles of attention, is even better, is as

00:01:55 ◼   ► I work on something for a long period of time, you know, say an app that I've had in the

00:02:01 ◼   ► store for a long time or a consulting project or something, once I've been doing that for

00:02:05 ◼   ► a certain amount of time, I find myself less interested in it than I used to be. And maybe

00:02:12 ◼   ► it's just a short attention span, but it's an interesting thing that I've found, pattern

00:02:16 ◼   ► that I found over and over and over again. That after I've been working on something

00:02:22 ◼   ► and for a couple of months, I become less interested in it. And I think the hardest

00:02:27 ◼   ► part of that is that I become less motivated to do a good job on it, which sounds like

00:02:34 ◼   ► an awful thing in many ways. But the problem is it no longer doesn't have that thrill of

00:02:41 ◼   ► excitement. And some of it has to do with often you're working on the tasks that aren't

00:02:45 ◼   ► is interesting. It's like the fun part of building an app is building an app. It's not

00:02:49 ◼   ► really maintaining an app. And so I think that that plays into it. But I think, moreover,

00:02:54 ◼   ► there's just something exciting about the creative, about taking something that doesn't

00:02:59 ◼   ► exist and making it new, or about the freshness of coming into something and sort of hitting

00:03:06 ◼   ► it afresh after a break or something like that. And so this is topical and timely for

00:03:11 ◼   ► me because I'm wrapping up a consulting project that I've been doing for probably about five,

00:03:18 ◼   ► six months, depending on how you count it, which is a longer project than I've almost

00:03:22 ◼   ► always worked on.

00:03:23 ◼   ► Typically, my projects are much closer to about three months, which is usually my attention

00:03:28 ◼   ► span.

00:03:29 ◼   ► This one went a little longer, and I'm kind of heading into a place now where it's like,

00:03:32 ◼   ► "Okay, I'm going to transition back from consulting and focus on my own apps."

00:03:38 ◼   ► I've done some work on my own apps in the interim, but primarily I've just been focused

00:03:42 ◼   ► on this consulting work, and that's, you know, fair enough, that's what they pay me for.

00:03:46 ◼   ► And I found this to be a very healthy pattern for me, and it's something that I wanted to

00:03:50 ◼   ► share here in case it would be helpful for other people who, for a while, I would always

00:03:54 ◼   ► think, "Okay, I want to make my own apps.

00:03:56 ◼   ► I want to make my own apps.

00:03:57 ◼   ► Like, that's my dream.

00:03:58 ◼   ► I want to be an independent app developer."

00:04:00 ◼   ► And I kind of hit there, you know, like I make a living from the apps I have in the

00:04:03 ◼   ► app store.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And that's great, and that's fun.

00:04:06 ◼   ► But what I found is if I just did that over and over,

00:04:10 ◼   ► I'm just so focused in there, I lose perspective

00:04:14 ◼   ► about what's important, what are the things

00:04:17 ◼   ► that I should be focused on in building apps.

00:04:20 ◼   ► I get pigeonholed into certain technologies,

00:04:24 ◼   ► the things that are related to my app.

00:04:25 ◼   ► So I have an audiobooks app, so I know the audio stuff

00:04:28 ◼   ► in iOS backwards and forwards,

00:04:31 ◼   ► but I haven't done other stuff.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I haven't done Mac development.

00:04:35 ◼   ► I haven't done all kinds of other places where these are skills that'd be very helpful and are good for me to learn,

00:04:40 ◼   ► but I've just never learned them because they're not related to my projects.

00:04:45 ◼   ► And so a pattern that I kind of found myself getting into is,

00:04:49 ◼   ► "Okay, I'm going to work on my own apps for a couple of months, and then I'll do a consulting project."

00:04:52 ◼   ► And even if you're an iOS app developer of sort of any skill,

00:04:56 ◼   ► it's fairly easy to find consulting these days.

00:05:00 ◼   ► And then I would do that for a couple of months,

00:05:01 ◼   ► Basically what I'm looking for in that consulting project

00:05:03 ◼   ► is to work with an interesting team,

00:05:05 ◼   ► which combats some of the problems of working on your own,

00:05:07 ◼   ► that you're only as good as,

00:05:10 ◼   ► you're learning from yourself,

00:05:12 ◼   ► which is often not nearly as good

00:05:14 ◼   ► as learning from someone else.

00:05:15 ◼   ► So it combats that by working on a good team,

00:05:17 ◼   ► and then working on a technology and a platform

00:05:20 ◼   ► that I'm not as comfortable on.

00:05:22 ◼   ► So it's working on something that deals with text,

00:05:26 ◼   ► where I'm used to dealing with audio,

00:05:27 ◼   ► or working on the Mac rather than the iOS, or whatever.

00:05:30 ◼   ► doing something that's different.

00:05:32 ◼   ► And it's kind of fun to be able to play around and learn

00:05:34 ◼   ► and kind of build interesting things

00:05:37 ◼   ► and be paid for it in a non-risk way.

00:05:40 ◼   ► Or in a non-risky way, I guess.

00:05:42 ◼   ► And so, when I'm building an app, I'm not taking a risk.

00:05:45 ◼   ► I'm going to put in several, several hours,

00:05:48 ◼   ► several dozen hours, 700 hours, whatever,

00:05:50 ◼   ► I'm going to turn it on the app,

00:05:52 ◼   ► and I'm hoping that other people

00:05:53 ◼   ► are going to like that and buy it.

00:05:54 ◼   ► With consulting, you're selling your time, essentially,

00:05:57 ◼   ► and you get paid for it kind of either way,

00:06:01 ◼   ► in the sense that you're being paid

00:06:03 ◼   ► for that time and that attention.

00:06:05 ◼   ► It's not this kind of thing that you're building

00:06:07 ◼   ► and you're making an investment

00:06:08 ◼   ► that you're hoping to be paid off later.

00:06:11 ◼   ► And so I find it to be a great pattern

00:06:12 ◼   ► for me to learn things, to stay engaged.

00:06:14 ◼   ► And then what often happens,

00:06:15 ◼   ► I mean, it's incredibly predictable,

00:06:18 ◼   ► is about three months later, I'm like,

00:06:19 ◼   ► "Hey, you know, maybe I want to work on my own stuff again."

00:06:23 ◼   ► And I kind of wind myself down off a project

00:06:25 ◼   ► and focus on my own apps,

00:06:27 ◼   ► and then kind of switch back and forth between them.

00:06:30 ◼   ► And it's a pattern that I'd really recommend

00:06:32 ◼   ► if you're an independent iOS developer,

00:06:34 ◼   ► or would like to be, or those types of things,

00:06:36 ◼   ► to kind of view it as a good way

00:06:37 ◼   ► to kind of structure this business in a sustainable way.

00:06:41 ◼   ► So if my app income started to fall off, for example,

00:06:45 ◼   ► I have this consulting base,

00:06:47 ◼   ► both in terms of income on a yearly,

00:06:49 ◼   ► it's like if I'm spending, say, half my time consulting,

00:06:54 ◼   ► that's a good amount of money that can kind of provide

00:06:56 ◼   ► for me and my family.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And on the flip side, I have those relationships,

00:06:59 ◼   ► those experiences, those marketability things,

00:07:01 ◼   ► of being able to say, yeah, I do consulting.

00:07:04 ◼   ► If I ever needed to, like my apps just collapsed

00:07:07 ◼   ► and I started making no money from them,

00:07:09 ◼   ► the next day I could be like,

00:07:10 ◼   ► call up a couple of people I've worked with

00:07:12 ◼   ► and be like, hey, I'm looking for work.

00:07:14 ◼   ► And I'd be able to fairly easily, I'd hope,

00:07:17 ◼   ► sort of pick that up and keep my income coming.

00:07:20 ◼   ► And the flip side, it still creates that opportunity

00:07:24 ◼   ► that if I, one of my apps does well.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I've had the best app success for a couple of my apps

00:07:30 ◼   ► that did much better than I would ever have expected them to

00:07:33 ◼   ► and it's the benefit of, okay, I've been able to do those

00:07:37 ◼   ► and sort of benefit from that income in a passive way

00:07:40 ◼   ► while I'm doing other things

00:07:42 ◼   ► and while I'm focusing on other things.

00:07:44 ◼   ► I mean, it's one of the most remarkable things to me in iOS

00:07:46 ◼   ► is I have an app for like audiobooks, for example.

00:07:49 ◼   ► It's been in the store for about three years now.

00:07:52 ◼   ► in various forms, and it still makes up a good part of my income.

00:08:01 ◼   ► And I don't work on it very much anymore.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Like the concept and the implementation is fairly stable, and at some point I'll probably

00:08:07 ◼   ► do maintenance updates and add content to it and things, but at its core it's been fairly

00:08:12 ◼   ► similar for a very long time.

00:08:14 ◼   ► And as an investment, I mean, that's huge that I put in that time early and now it just

00:08:19 ◼   ► keeps paying back while I'm working on other things.

00:08:23 ◼   ► And so that's kind of what, it's nice to have that balance,

00:08:25 ◼   ► is something that I found.

00:08:26 ◼   ► And I think even more for me, that I am now,

00:08:29 ◼   ► it kind of gives you the best of both worlds.

00:08:32 ◼   ► That I used to not,

00:08:34 ◼   ► like when I was working for a normal line to five job,

00:08:38 ◼   ► the challenge I often had is, you know,

00:08:40 ◼   ► even if you work on a project,

00:08:41 ◼   ► and say it's the same in the last three months,

00:08:44 ◼   ► you're often then kind of, okay, well that was version one.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Now you're going to go work on version 1.1.

00:08:50 ◼   ► Now you're going to work on version 1.2.

00:08:51 ◼   ► And that really, I think that my attention suffered

00:08:56 ◼   ► as a result and my ability to focus on something.

00:08:59 ◼   ► And some people I know, they can really just work

00:09:02 ◼   ► on something forever.

00:09:03 ◼   ► And they'll polish it and polish it and polish it

00:09:05 ◼   ► and keep working on it, and that's great for them.

00:09:08 ◼   ► I just find that I'm not that kind of a developer,

00:09:11 ◼   ► that kind of, you know, my mind just doesn't work that way,

00:09:15 ◼   ► that I get very frustrated by that.

00:09:16 ◼   ► I kind of find myself being like, you know,

00:09:19 ◼   ► this is kind of boring.

00:09:21 ◼   ► Can't I do something else?

00:09:23 ◼   ► Can I find something fun to do?

00:09:25 ◼   ► So this is kind of the pattern I found into

00:09:27 ◼   ► where I have these cycles of attention

00:09:29 ◼   ► where I was like, okay, I'm going to work on my own stuff.

00:09:30 ◼   ► Okay, I'm going to work on consulting for someone else

00:09:34 ◼   ► for a little while and so on.

00:09:36 ◼   ► And the interesting thing that I find

00:09:37 ◼   ► that is a sort of markers for this activity

00:09:40 ◼   ► that is so consistent is I know it's time

00:09:44 ◼   ► to start working my own apps when all the time

00:09:47 ◼   ► I'm thinking about cool apps and things and ideas

00:09:49 ◼   ► and things that I can do.

00:09:51 ◼   ► It's like I'm taking a shower and I'm like,

00:09:53 ◼   ► wait, what if I did that?

00:09:55 ◼   ► What if I did this?

00:09:56 ◼   ► And my mind is just racing with those types of things.

00:10:00 ◼   ► It's almost like to escape the consulting.

00:10:02 ◼   ► And I know the flip side, I know it's time

00:10:04 ◼   ► to sort of stop working my own apps and get some perspective

00:10:07 ◼   ► when that stops, when that creativity's there.

00:10:10 ◼   ► And it's like, OK, I need a change of scenery.

00:10:12 ◼   ► I need a change of pace.

00:10:13 ◼   ► I need to start working on a project for someone else,

00:10:15 ◼   ► where someone else is saying, hey, build this

00:10:18 ◼   ► with these features, X, Y, Z, and it kind of

00:10:22 ◼   ► takes that creativity out of the process a little bit,

00:10:25 ◼   ► where I'm not thinking constantly about,

00:10:27 ◼   ► how would I do this, what features could I add to this app,

00:10:30 ◼   ► what would it do?

00:10:31 ◼   ► Someone else is doing that and it kind of pulls back

00:10:33 ◼   ► and gives you some perspective.

00:10:35 ◼   ► So it may not be for everybody,

00:10:36 ◼   ► but I just kind of wanted to share about it.

00:10:37 ◼   ► It's kind of timely for me, like I said,

00:10:39 ◼   ► 'cause I'm transitioning back into that.

00:10:40 ◼   ► At this point, I'm really looking forward to it.

00:10:42 ◼   ► I got all these ideas and things that I'm looking forward

00:10:43 ◼   ► to building, and then I'll probably in a couple of months,

00:10:46 ◼   ► or a month or whatever, and I find that I'm bored

00:10:50 ◼   ► with it again or wanting to look for something else,

00:10:52 ◼   ► I'll go back and do some more consulting,

00:10:53 ◼   ► and kind of that cycle will continue.

00:10:56 ◼   ► And like I said, it's been good for me,

00:10:58 ◼   ► and definitely something I'd recommend at least trying.

00:11:02 ◼   ► If you're an independent developer,

00:11:04 ◼   ► you're like, "Oh, I don't want to be a consultant."

00:11:08 ◼   ► It's like, well, maybe try it.

00:11:09 ◼   ► Just do a project for a couple of months.

00:11:11 ◼   ► It's not like you're, you're not buying a house.

00:11:13 ◼   ► It's not something you're investing in.

00:11:14 ◼   ► It's like, okay, well, if you don't like it, don't do it.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Or simply if you're a consultant, it's like,

00:11:18 ◼   ► hey man, can I take a month, two months,

00:11:21 ◼   ► and just work on your own app?

00:11:23 ◼   ► And that experience is far,

00:11:26 ◼   ► its value is far more beyond the financial.

00:11:28 ◼   ► I think it'll make you better at what you do,

00:11:30 ◼   ► and more motivated and focused in what you do.

00:11:34 ◼   ► All right, that's it for today's show.

00:11:35 ◼   ► I hope that's interesting.

00:11:36 ◼   ► Happy Friday.

00:11:37 ◼   ► If you like the show, best things you can do.

00:11:39 ◼   ► Tell a friend, I'd love that.

00:11:41 ◼   ► that. I'm rated on iTunes. Apparently that's a helpful thing. And otherwise, if you need

00:11:45 ◼   ► to get a hold of me, I'm on Twitter @_davidsmith, underscore D-A-V-I-D-S-M-I-T-H, and my website

00:11:52 ◼   ► is david-smith.org. I've been blogging there a fair bit recently. I'll probably be picking

00:11:56 ◼   ► it up a lot as I move off consulting and can focus on my own things. One of those projects

00:12:01 ◼   ► that I'll be focused on is my blog and probably this podcast. So if you like it, expect more

00:12:05 ◼   ► of it. All right, thanks. Happy Friday and happy coding. Bye.

00:12:08 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:12:09 ◼   ► [ Silence ]

00:12:27 ◼   ► [ Silence ]