Solo Dev Jack Of All Trades, Master Of None

Solo Development

Solo development is when someone works on making an app, or game all alone. There is absolutely no one to help you with work. You have to do everything. You want to develop, plan, schedule, all by yourself.

However it does have it's perks.

• No one to hold you back creatively.
• You are in full control of your destiny.
• You get to decide what to do.
• You get to decide how to spend your time.

Having said that, it also comes with more effort to reward ratio.

Effort to reward ratio = How much effort do you need to put in to guarantee more reward

Because you are doing things yourself you have to put more effort in for little to no reward.

Jack of all trades, master of none

Some people can do it all by themselves. It depends on the scope of the business, the cost of input, the cost of development, the total cost of production. Some people have enough energy to do everything. Some people don't.

They keep the scope of things small and do just a few things very well. The cost for them is minimal so they can handle the entire development.

Trying to do everything but only doing it on a shallow level. Never getting really good at something.

Some people want to create massive worlds that take teams years to make. They overshoot the scope that they are capable. Not one person can do every single thing at all times. Everyone has a limit. Being a solo developer means you have to do everything. You become a jack of all trades. You start to learn to program, and then develop your app or game. You realize that you need to learn art and audio engineering.

Whatever route you take

The count of jobs you have to cover becomes staggering. Whole companies hire tons of people. Whatever route you take, either you are an artist trying to learn code, or you are a musician that wants to make game soundtracks, you always have the main skill and then sub skills. If you spend time trying to learn all of these skills then you never really get good at them. You just use them as a utility or stand in to get the job done for now.

By trying to actively learn so many things you actually learn nothing. Always surface level knowledge.

The time it takes to get good at something requires patience and focus. It's something that just doesn't happen over night. It takes time to get the ball rolling. If you spend your time jumping around from thing to thing you will never be able to focus.

Flexible Focus

Take the time to plan your focus. What will I focus on today? Tomorrow? Next Week? Having a plan is a way to be able to focus on the things that are important. Plans get the ball rolling. Having focus is good, but there is a thing as too much focus. If your all focus on one thing for too long you might miss something. Take a break and breathe and think of other things.

Flow

Nothing is free. Everything comes at a cost. Por planning, unscalable systems that lead to tech debt. Being efficient with time is the first step in becoming successful. Tracking time and costs can put things in scope. When you have a workable scope you can enter into the development flow. It is this flow that developers all seek.

Flow is the point when it becomes easy that you don't have to think about it anymore and you have the chance to be more creative

Being Creative

Being a solo dev is great. You have no shackles on your creativity. You get to to create something in the world around us. This blank canvas is ours to paint our dreams into existence.

Dreams usually come from something that makes an impression. It's what drives the effort. We provide our efforts that become debt, we receive monetary payback, we combine the services of others to provide the needs of society. Once our needs have been met we can focus on being creative.

Relaxation

Plan your time accord to how much you can do. You can focus on something in 30 min incrments, with a short break and then get back to your list of things. Relaxation is also needed when you get stuck. You need a second to breathe and think. Get your mind off things, let go of everything, and become clear. Focus your breathing and come back to it when you are ready.

Deadlines

By setting deadlines for yourself you can have some kind of accountability. In reality you don't have deadlines, unless you have someone paying you. However if you set some dealines and try to keep them, then it will help you focus on what is really important and how to use your time.

Goals

Let's set some goals. I am a programmer but I have always liked drawing. I am not really good at anything, I can cobble somethings together. I've always wanted to make my own games, but realize it takes a lot of hard work. I have planned out some goals I want to accomplish. Obviously the 12 games in 2025 goal. But there is a lot of sub goals I need to do to acheive that. I want to become a better artist and designer. There is also writing and story telling I want to get into. I am already somewhat knowledgable about programming and music. I could probably deep dive into more things.