How I built a business that lets me live on the beach full time

Is that generally the case? Or is it usually more parallel to your own experience?

I'll have to go back and separate out what I actually learned during that period, since you're right that it's probably not entirely intuitive.

For the longer gigs, which made up most of my early contract work, it was mostly just a matter of telling them during the interview process that I'd prefer to work on a contract rather than salaried basis.

Rather than set aside and extra couple hours in the morning or after work as "product building time", I'd just let it happen on its own.

I work in bursts, so I'd get a bug up one evening, get up off the couch and run with an idea for a few hours. If I didn't finish, and I was still excited about the idea, I'd do the same thing the next night. I'd sometimes get on a roll and do this for a couple weeks on end. But other times, I'd run out of steam and just let it go.

The cool thing about SaaS businesses is that a lot of things run on "Calendar Time". So once the initial thing is out the door, you can weather a lot of unmotivation (or screwing off) while your SEO, ads, and word-of-mouth are doing their thing behind the scenes.

I took a long term full-time contract at one point when my first kid was born, and still somehow managed to burst out new features this way in between changing diapers. There are a lot of hours in the day, most of which go in to "down time". Don't sweat it too much, and know that you can steal that down time to use when you're motivated.