Hey, this is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps!
Now today, let's answer the question where do you get the time?
Okay, so today I want to respond to a comment that came in last week from G.
Nikhil Vijay Raj who said, "I still wonder where the hell do you get the time to
make apps, as well as maintaining a constant growing YouTube channel of this
scale?" Of this scale? I really appreciate it. Iit's a really nice comment. I
appreciate that it makes me sound like I'm super productive, like I've just I've
got so much free time on my hands which I don't. The truth is I don't
really have time to make videos every day, but nobody does. We just have
to make it that I decided when I started doing it, that if it's gonna work, I have
to make it important. Because it's not going to be important to anybody else
but to me. So, I want to make sure that whatever happens, we're not going to miss
the video each day. Alright, you see, I find that when you try to have time for
something that you want to do, a lot of times you have to defend that time
because people will try to take it from you. See, I remember when I was a
permanent employee, I was working at a job as a software developer, actually
several jobs as a software developer, and it's a contractor. For a while, my life
was in a rut and I would get up in the morning and I would go to work and I
would get there like 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning. If it was in London, I'd have
like a two-hour commute, so I have to get up early get on the train, go into London
and I'd work through the day. A lot of times, I'll have lunch at my desk and
then at the end of the day, I never left at 5:00. There was always something going
on or even - or a manager that was making me feel guilty into staying later.
So, it's day later, I never left before 6 o'clock sometimes, and
other times, I was there at seven, eight o'clock at night. As a software
developer, it's always some problem and everyone wants to rope you into it. So,
you know, that was a whole day and if you have small children you know what this
is like because you get home and your kids want to spend time with you. Of
course they do. They're - you're their dad so there was
all this. So you go home, you can't just go home and say, "Well, I've got
to work on the computer and do my own thing," so, I would spend time
with family and then maybe watch a bit of television, go to bed, wake up the next
morning and do the same thing again. Monday to Friday. And on weekends, it was
mow the lawn, iron clothes, catch up on the things you didn't get done
during the week. For a while I started to get really depressed
about this. I started thinking, "Is this just what my life's gonna be like now? Is this
gonna be like five years from now, ten years from now?" And the scariest
thing is when you see other people who are 10 years older than you and they're
doing the exact same thing you think, "You know, this really could be what I'm doing
10 years from now." And it was really scary.
So, I started waking up an hour earlier every day, I read this book and so I
started waking up at 5 o'clock instead of 6 o'clock. I had this one hour which
didn't belong to anybody else but me. It was - it was crazy. It was, it's
sad really, that you think of your entire day, I had this one hour and it
wasn't even a good hour. It was the hour that you're all grumpy cuz you just woke
up. It's the hour you're like you wake up, you have a cup of coffee, get on
with what your wearing. By the time you snap out of it, it's like time to get ready
for work, anyway. So then I started waking up at 4 o'clock and for a while, I
experimented with game at 3 o'clock, but that was just too much. I couldn't do it. It
was just - I think psychologically, I didn't have it in me. But for about 15
years, I would get up about 4:00 or about 4 or 4:30 every morning and I would get
loads done before I ever went into work. It was and sometimes, I would
have people find out like I wouldn't have employers or managers, especially if it's
a small company. The owner of the company would find out that I got up this early
because I sent him an email or something like that, and he would say, "Oh,
why you up so early?" I said like, "I've got - I do this because it's just I
get up early, so I have some time to myself." And they'll say, "Well, why don't
you just come into the office a bit earlier because then we could have our
meeting earlier in the day." And that would be better for me. It was like, "No. No."
Finally, I have to put my foot down. No. this time belongs to me. If I have to
choose between going into the office and having a meeting extra early or staying
in bed, I'd rather just stay in bed. But I got out of bed and I stole these hours
from my own sleep and this time belongs to me. And this is the first time I ever
got really defensive about it. It's like the rest of the world could take the
other 22 hours of the day, but these two hours belong to me. And I was, "Yeah,
this is the time where I started doing the apps, we started building Overpass,
so much was done in those two hours of the morning because everything
else belonged to everyone else. I mean, if you work for an employer,
you know what this is like. Sometimes, it's even the way they talk to you like,
"I'll tell you what, as a gift to you we'll give you the day off." What?
As a gift to you? "How about I work for you today?" That's the way
that it should work. They said, "No, I'll tell you what, Eric, why don't you take
the day off?" And sometimes that's what you
feel like and sometimes when you do take some time off to yourself, you
feel guilty. But for some reason, in those early morning hours, I didn't now that I
run Overpass and we have clients, it's a lot easier because while I went from how -
I've talked about this before - while I went from having one boss to having
several bosses which may be a strategic misstep on my part, none of those clients
have full control of my schedule. So, I get a say what's important, what's not
and one of the things is I want this time for doing the videos. This is my
time. This is my time to talk to you every day. Alright, I'm going to make
this important. I don't care if it's logical or not. I don't care if
there's other things that are more urgent, this is the time that I'm going
to set aside, that we're gonna talk about this kind of stuff. The channel, while
it may not be important to anybody else, it's important to me. So, if you've
ever read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which is a very good book, you
read about it and a lot of other books. It talks about the resistance, so
even though now when I don't have anybody else saying, "Are you sure you
should be doing this? Shouldn't you be doing something else?" There's still the
voice inside my head that says, "Hmm, surely nobody would mind if I missed the
video today or tomorrow, or maybe I should just stop doing it". Maybe I should
work on this other thing then, because logically that thing would pay more
whatever. And then the other part of me has to jump in and say, "No, no, no, no, no.
We're not having this conversation. We are gonna work on the
thing that you want to work on. We're gonna trust the process. We're gonna do
this video each day because you said you would and because you like to do it."
I'm not gonna feel guilty about this anymore and this is why I love
indie app developers because you, guys, go through the same thing. You're working on
projects which may or may not work, you're taking time to work on something
that other people may not believe in, but you have to believe in it even though
logically there may not be any reason to do.
I'll tell you what, it is easier doing a video knowing that 200 people - so about
average of 200 or 300 people watch the videos these days - it's easier to
do it like that then it was doing it when 10 people watched it. We had 10
views on a video, to do the video and had 10 views and five of them were you and
the other five were like your family. That's hard. I admire people who
start their own YouTube channels now or start their own apps now, or someone who
goes out and goes for a run when it's their first time, because everybody else
doubts them. And even that internal voice, they're starting to doubt
themselves. Is this even worth doing it? But you have to trust the process. If
you're working, if you have it, we all have an app out there that does not do
very well and we need to do a little bit of work on it. But is it worth the time
to put into it. Sometimes you just have to be
stubborn and have faith and work on that thing. And that's what we have to do with
the channel too. To answer your question, I don't get time to work on the
YouTube channel, I make the time. I fight for the time, I defend the time. There's
always somebody else who's willing to take that time away from you. If you
don't say this is important to me even though it's based on faith, and me being
stubborn, this is important and I'm going to do it.
So to all of you, app developers out there, who are working on something that
other people don't believe in, but you're putting the time into it, the time where
you don't even know what's gonna work, but you have faith. And you are going to
trust the process. You're gonna do what you need to do and you're gonna make
that app live. You're gonna batter against the gates until they give in. I
salute you. I think it's the best thing ever and I'm glad you, guys, are here
because it makes me feel less alone. Anyway, tell me what you, guys, think.
That is it for today. I will talk to you again tomorrow!