Ask HN: No intrinisic motivation to build stuff

How to trick myself into building an awesome web project? Remove all software other than a text editor? Wouldn't I need at least a web browser? :-)

I think it's not that easy in all cases. However, I already practice the food use-case you've mentioned (I simply don't buy unhealthy food).

Wasted sounds too dramatic, misallocated I would say.

I would love to be able to achieve a 100% focus at will. But I think acquiring knowledge in so many different fields has also allowed me to have a pretty unique personality that I'm satisfied with. Sometimes I look at those people that are completely sucked into one thing and I just think I wouldn't like to be like them. I would love to have tons and tons of money, but would I want to be Warren Buffet? No way.

For example I spent a year learning Chinese (completed an equivalent of 3 years of study for a 'normal' person + naturally expanded over the next year without effort or loosing too much time). I know it's something pretty much without use unless I want to get a crappy job, but I'm happy I did. I just like having that extra knowledge. It's no different than how I want to have a fancy car. If I was to put a price tag on that knowledge it would definitely be millions.

My point is that although there's no doubt we need to improve let's do it our way. A good analogy is when you play a game, say soccer and you invent your own way to kick the ball, you know how other, better people kick it, you know your way is 'wrong' but it's so much more fun. And who knows maybe one day it turns out you can still win that way.

Let's not get depressed (you sound a little hopeless there, haha). We can adjust this and that and we'll be fine.

Barbara Sher - Refuse to choose. It's book about people similar to you.

Also, if you work well with a particular extrinsic structure (and enjoy it), why not leverage that. did you enjoy the uni projects that were for grades? Why not create the same type of conditions. All motivation is ultimately intrinsic anyway.

No it's not easy, but removing distractions helps keep you on track.

A lot of people on HN I've heard say they use a web filter on themselves. Only allowing most web sites for certain times of day, otherwise they're locked down to "productive" web sites.

Also, when you're looking for something new to learn instead of picking a new breadth topic, pick a depth topic you don't know about and learn about in one of your hand picked languages. Like if you're learning about networking or machine learning, use a language that you want to know better, but have "lost interest" in instead of one you already know well.

For me, addressing underlying health issues has helped. I also read a book a long time ago about "psychology" (for lack of a better word) which talked about how people have different profiles for what stuff they will do in varying amounts. You figure out how much of different types of things you need to do and find a lifestyle that gets the results you want (in terms of money or whatever) and do that.

Real life example: I'm a middle-of-the-road extrovert, so I need a certain amount of social interaction but I have my limits. When deprived of the minimum necessary amount of social interaction, my functioning is impaired. When I reach my limit, it's time to stop and go be alone for a bit. That doesn't mean I'm a flake and now abandoning folks or some such. It means my "budget" has been spent for this particular thing and I need to recharge before I can do more of it.

Folks on HN sometimes talk about being only able to code X number of hours per week and no more, so they can't manage to work full time as a coder and also do a side project. Others talk about needing to code a certain amount and being unable to just stop until they have done a certain amount of problem solving or the like. Some "needs" can be channeled somewhat into different pursuits but when the limit is reached, that's all you can do. So maybe part of the issue is that being in college uses up so much of what you have to give that there isn't enough left to finish something else on top of it? If so, then doing a start-up full time might work but trying to do it on the side might not.