What are the circumstances under which you give the most, work the hardest, put in your best and strive for the most awesome outcome?
Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
1–10 of 17 posts
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#2When my cowokers and manager make me feel like we are in this together and treat me like a human not just someone taking in coffee and pumping out code
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#3When I’m happy at home.
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#4When I feel like I am doing good in the world, and doing that work with people I like. ESP if I get to interact a little w/ clients we help.
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#5- when I think about eventually getting financial freedom to focus on doing things meaningful for me,
- when I help my colleagues to grow professionally and personally,
- strong desire to deliver a sophisticated piece of tech or master a technology.
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#6When I enjoy what I am doing. The funny part is that I would not call this work, which is exactly the reason why I can "work" that hard.
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#7I work best and am most motivated when I am well rested. When I get very tired I find myself feeling almost depressed and am unmotivated to do anything.
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#8When I've got a clear understanding of the design, including where and why tradeoffs were made (ie, we chose X method to optimize CPU time over memory). I enjoy just cranking out code, solving small problems, enjoying the fruits of good architectural design and planning.
I'm at my least motivated when I'm frustrated, which usually involves pre-code planning phase but feeling like I don't have enough information about the project requirements to choose; not enough time to R&D between the choices also promotes this frustration.
I've generally found this form of decision roadblock to be my worst (and maybe only?) writers block.
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#9When I’m happy at home.
Well said, seems like a big base that has to be right for anything else to be :).
Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do your best work, and work hardest?
#10When I feel supported by management, even when it's not something they want to hear -- also when that support leads to a good work-life balance. I'm not talking anything crazy, just I put in my 8 hours so don't call me when I'm at home.
Too many managers fail to realize that when an engineer is not in the office, often times they are thinking of the problems they will need to solve next. A little outside time thinking generally leads to better solutions then "we need this now" attitude that I see so many inexperienced managers do.