00:00:00 ◼ ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app developers. I'm Mark Orment.
00:00:05 ◼ ► And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.
00:00:10 ◼ ► So today we want to start the first of a two-part series just talking about some of the, I guess,
00:00:16 ◼ ► the more practical sides of being an independent developer. And today we're going to focus
00:00:22 ◼ ► talking about some of the realities and choices you have when you're working from home, which
00:00:32 ◼ ► obviously you don't have an office that you have to go to, that your employer is forcing
00:00:36 ◼ ► you to go to. So we're going to talk through a little bit of what that looks like, some
00:00:41 ◼ ► of the misconceptions you may have about that, some of the different approaches that I think
00:00:46 ◼ ► we've taken. I've tried all kinds of different things, and then ultimately just some things
00:00:51 ◼ ► to kind of be aware of. And then as part two of this thing we'll talk about next week is
00:00:56 ◼ ► going to just be diving into a little bit about what our computer setups look like being
00:01:10 ◼ ► the best place to start would be to talk about some of the misconceptions, because I feel
00:01:21 ◼ ► is or looks like. I think you often have this vision that you're just sitting out on your
00:01:39 ◼ ► where Billy from accounting keeps coming by and asking you questions, and you can never
00:01:44 ◼ ► get anything done, and it's meetings all day. And finally, if I work from home, I will be
00:01:55 ◼ ► It's in my experience. Your experience may be different, Marco, but for me it is nothing
00:02:01 ◼ ► like that. They are different distractions and they are different types of productivity
00:02:20 ◼ ► the people who are around are now immediately available. I'm not physically separated from
00:02:29 ◼ ► come up and there's a lot of awkward conversations you may have to have with your partner about
00:02:41 ◼ ► "I guess, I guess." But at the same time, I'm supposed to be working during those hours
00:02:45 ◼ ► and if I wouldn't come home from work for that, would I just because I am at home should
00:02:58 ◼ ► of things and I really love the flexibility that being at home provides. But if you have
00:03:03 ◼ ► any dreams or illusions towards working from home being this distraction-free utopia, you
00:03:12 ◼ ► Oh yeah, I mean, because it is full of challenges. They're just different challenges than you
00:03:18 ◼ ► have in a regular, more traditional workplace. And part of it, you mentioned one of the biggest
00:03:24 ◼ ► challenges is when you have a family or a relationship and you have to try to find that
00:03:33 ◼ ► as well to exercise the self-control and barriers to avoid yourself wanting to go hang out with
00:03:46 ◼ ► you are trying to be nice or it would be cruel not to. So for instance, you know, if you
00:03:51 ◼ ► have like a three year old who runs into your office and wants to show you something they
00:03:55 ◼ ► made, you can't be like, no, sorry, I'm working. I'm not going to turn and look at you for
00:04:03 ◼ ► you're not going to do that. And a three year old might also have problems remembering or
00:04:07 ◼ ► respecting those boundaries about, well, even though mommy or daddy are in the office working
00:04:12 ◼ ► right now, like you can see them but they're at work so you shouldn't bother them. Like
00:04:16 ◼ ► that's a hard thing for kids of a pretty big age range to really get and to follow every
00:04:22 ◼ ► time. And if you're home, one of the benefits of working for yourself is that you get to
00:04:28 ◼ ► be there for stuff that happens with your family or you get to hang out with your significant
00:04:50 ◼ ► go out to lunch with my wife, I can just do that. And yeah, it's going to blow a big hole
00:05:01 ◼ ► part of the benefit of working at home. But it's a really hard thing to balance between
00:05:07 ◼ ► actual working time, especially if you are a programmer like us and you try to get uninterrupted
00:05:30 ◼ ► your family, like it's a very, very hard balance to strike. And I've now been working independently
00:05:37 ◼ ► at home for, oh geez, almost seven years. And even after this long, I still do not balance
00:05:45 ◼ ► it well. I just find ways to, you know, make that work for me. Like I, you know, only choose
00:05:52 ◼ ► things to do that I can wedge into my weird undisciplined work schedule. People who are
00:05:56 ◼ ► more disciplined about it like you can usually achieve way more per day than I can. But this
00:06:02 ◼ ► is like, I have chosen to strike a fairly poor balance between work time and like family
00:06:21 ◼ ► stable all the time. Like there will be some months like in the summertime like now where
00:06:27 ◼ ► I have a lot of work to do for the, you know, the new iOS betas and stuff. And I struggle
00:06:31 ◼ ► with finding, you know, large blocks of time to do that and then also sticking to it when
00:06:42 ◼ ► oh, it's Amazon Prime Day. Let me go look at all this stuff that's for sale or whatever
00:06:50 ◼ ► have an unbelievable degree of self-control. Even if you have the most respectful family
00:07:07 ◼ ► - Yeah, and I think in some ways the kind of cruel reality of this is that it is hardest
00:07:27 ◼ ► be starting out doing something. Like whether that is you have quit your job to pursue apps
00:07:37 ◼ ► like to work from home or you need to because of a relocation or like whatever that situation
00:07:42 ◼ ► is. That initial period where you're almost kind of proving that this can work is going
00:07:57 ◼ ► It'll be nine years this September. And I know that because the reason I started working
00:08:09 ◼ ► who is eight years old now, I had this terrible commute that I was going back and forth with
00:08:15 ◼ ► every day. And it was one of those sort of realities where I was like, you know, I just