I recently retired from working for other companies after a 35 year career; but I have a personal side-project that I have worked on for about a decade. During that time I would usually spend spare time on it in the evenings or on weekends. Now I can work on it anytime I like.

Without some kind of structure, it is easy to let a whole week or two go by without accomplishing much of anything. So I make sure that I get up at 7am every morning and do something productive on it each day. Some days I will only spend a couple hours on it, others I will work 10+ hours on it.

Since startup founders often have to wear many hats, it can be a challenge to decide what to work on each day. To prevent boredom and to spread tasks around so that progress is made in several different areas; I roll a single die every day to decide which of six areas to work on that day. 1 = Work on a new feature. 2 = Test an existing feature or run benchmarks. 3 = Fix bugs or optimize some code. 4 = Write documentation, blogs, or newsletters. 5 = Work on marketing and sales. 6 = Reach out to existing customers for feedback or help them figure out how to use it better.