Ask HN: How do you find motivation to do stuff?

It sounds like you don't have motivation to keep up with the changes of the AI state of the art. That's fine. Don't.

But motivation in general? Let it find you. When you see "hey, I really want to do that", well, that that's motivation. You want to do that. You don't have to manufacture motivation - you have motivation.

And once you have motivation, if you want to experiment with using an AI as you do it, that's fine. If you don't, that's fine too.

I am not a software developer anymore, just a guy who applies his software development skills to his day to day business problems. The switch made me more pragmatic about software, but also made coding a lot more fun since it's not my full-time occupation. If you want to love something, don't do it for a living.

To me, AI is a bit like a dishwasher or a spreadsheet: a labour-saving device for the things I don't enjoy doing. It handles the tedium so I can do more of the fun stuff. It also removes the friction from learning stuff. At times it feels like a real world pokedex, or an iteration of Steve Jobs' bicycle for the mind.

Remember to play too. Coding for money makes you forget why you got into it in the first place. I love cooking and making watercolours because I never expected to do it professionally or even for money. Sometimes it's good to just fuck around with no expectations of productivity. Do stupid things, mess up, have fun!

Sometimes, I really get bored, reading about AI products. At some point there are so many that look the same: UI + API + AI. I usually lose motivation when I don't see that the effort will give me good results or gains. 7 years ago I started learning Haskell, I read 2-3 book started working on a de-duplication app. At some point I realized that in order to learn the language to the level where I am confident that I know it, I need to practice it for at least an year, and afterwards, I need some miracle to happen to find a project and practice is. I decided that it does not worth the effort.

Now, the other case, I have a newborn. Now with two kids I am highly motivated. Also, with AI, not knowing a language is not a stopper anymore. So I made a pretty descent Android application for monitoring elderly people, that runs 24/7 despite Android is trying to kill it all the time, without practicing the language. Knowing that I can do it, seeing the results, having the responsibility sleeping behind me, gives me good reasons to continue. :)

Also what are our alternatives? Because of AI, I am not sure that I will have a job after one year. If I can do an android app with 400+ source files for 4 months, with 2000 unit tests, then it might happen that my employer reduces the working force, because there is not enough work for everybody. If don't have a back-up plan, what will I do?

If I still find myself tired and not motivated, I get another cup of coffee and continue :D :D

As a 27-year-old human, I’ve realized that life comes in phases. Recently, what really gave me a lot of motivation was launching a Chrome extension (side project, which no one 'll use probably :) ), built from scratch. Of course, AI helped a lot but I’m pretty sure that without it, I would have just started and never finished it. Having something of your own, even if it’s just a side project compared to your main job, makes you sleep better and feel happier.

I don't know how, but some months ago I found the motivation to read some technical Software books (never happened before).

I’ll admit I’ve wasted a lot of time doing nothing (like videogames or useless YT videos), but honestly, finding an ally like AI has helped me overcome the barrier of ‘I’ve never done this before, it’ll take too long just to learn it.’

That’s an interesting POV. But, looking back, I feel like I could have invested even 15% of that time into something more productive.