Ship-Day Loop (SDL)

Goal: Push a real artifact live today, even if ugly.

The Ship-Day Loop is a 4-hour deep-work block with one rule: something public goes live by the end. It splits the time into 4 passes — spec, build, ship, post-mortem — and forces a real artifact: a post, a PR, a deploy, a video, a tweet thread.

The tasks

1. 1. Spec the artifact (1 paragraph) est. 15m

   What does "shipped" mean by hour 4? Write it down.

2. 2. Build pass (no polish, no perfection) est. 150m

   Ugly is fine. Boring is fine. Missing is not.

3. 3. Ship pass (deploy, publish, post) est. 30m

   Public artifact only. Drafts do not count.

4. 4. Post-mortem: what would I cut or double next time? est. 15m

   Score the loop 1-5. One line on next ship-day.

When to run it

Best for: Indie hackers, solo founders, designers shipping in public.