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Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#111

Post by johndubchak »

onemoresoop wrote: post #65
trevyn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get married, buy a house, have kids. Then you know you have to finish your work because you are responsible for others. That’s like shooting yourself in the leg because you want stronger arms, and putting yourself in a wheelchair will help with that.

You'd be surprised how great the motivation is when you have a kid. Especially the first years. And I was thinking just like you before taking this step.

Having children really changes you as an individual, especially as you start your family. Your priorities become different and I think both of you are correct in mentioning the motivation for providing and creating a safe environment for the family unit really arises in the individual, almost innately.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#112

Post by runeks »

SamWhited wrote: post #104
mrburton wrote: post #98

It's simple - stop trying to right prefect code because it doesn't exist. Next, go sell it. Building a company means creating a balance and from what I hear, it's one sided; software development. Get people using it. Get people to give you feedback to drive the features, Engineers typically suck at sales and get caught up in building. Release it. Your customers don't give a shit about the code. I know you do and I re…

The customers care about the code when it breaks, overcharges them or keeps billing them, and then they sue me. I don't need to build perfect code, but I do need to make sure that something as important as this is done right the first time and doesn't hurt my customers. Customers are trusting me with the ability to charge them, that's something I won't take shortcuts on.

Do you have any customers yet?

I’d like to echo the comment from above: release now, and do billing manually. Once you start getting customers, you’ll be motivated to write a proper billing module.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#113

Post by johnstorey »

jinfiesto wrote: post #74

Maybe I'm just old and crusty, but I think motivation and passion are overrated. Just put your butt in the chair and do it. Passion and motivation are important, but no matter how passionate you are, you're eventually going to have lows that you're not going to get past unless you just slog through. That takes a certain amount of discipline.

This. Though I also may be old and crusty. Mark Twain said it nicely: "If you have to eat a frog, do it first thing in the morning. If you have to eat two, eat the bigger one first."

The longer you wait to do something you should but don't want to, the more difficult it will be to do. On top of that, you'll have the mental "weight" of knowing in the back of your mind it's sitting there, waiting for you. Best to just do it and get it out of the way.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#114

Post by scarejunba »

SamWhited wrote: post #100
scarejunba wrote: post #82

By applying the Agile methodology. I just stick it out there in whatever state and let people have access.

This is exactly why I hate Agile garbage. Just about everywhere I've ever worked has applied "agile" and all it's lead to is them building crap software quickly. I'm all for releasing early and often, but not "in whatever state". Have some pride and build good, well tested software.

I assume this is side project stuff. I don’t have a high standard for those. Not very prideful as an individual, tbh.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#115

Post by kevinyun »

tjkrusinski wrote: post #31

One day, you will be dead. Each year that passes after your death, fewer and fewer people will remember who you were, what you did or what your face looked like. Eventually, you'll be completely forgotten. Who cares if that side project you put out sucked or not. Might as well put it out there and see what people think. There's a good chance too that the project won't even be remembered even by the time you die. The…

Not to sound depressing, but as I read this comment's first paragraph, a negative perspective was my initial thought, and not the positive aspect.

It's worth noting that a "YOLO" attitude can be used as a double-edged sword for motivation (e.g, "One day I will be dead, so there's no point in vying for success")

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#116

Post by groby_b »

mgolawala wrote: post #70
tjkrusinski wrote: post #31

One day, you will be dead. Each year that passes after your death, fewer and fewer people will remember who you were, what you did or what your face looked like. Eventually, you'll be completely forgotten. Who cares if that side project you put out sucked or not. Might as well put it out there and see what people think. There's a good chance too that the project won't even be remembered even by the time you die. The…

That line of thinking can also be quite demotivating. For instance, it could also be used to argue that since none of what I do matters anyway, I might as well spend it doing something else such as watching TV, playing video games, hiking in the forests, reading a good book, etc.

Sure. If that makes you happier, there's nothing wrong with that.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#117

Post by sephoric »

kevinyun wrote: post #115
tjkrusinski wrote: post #31

One day, you will be dead. Each year that passes after your death, fewer and fewer people will remember who you were, what you did or what your face looked like. Eventually, you'll be completely forgotten. Who cares if that side project you put out sucked or not. Might as well put it out there and see what people think. There's a good chance too that the project won't even be remembered even by the time you die. The…

Not to sound depressing, but as I read this comment's first paragraph, a negative perspective was my initial thought, and not the positive aspect. It's worth noting that a "YOLO" attitude can be used as a double-edged sword for motivation (e.g, "One day I will be dead, so there's no point in vying for success")

I guess that depends on what you mean by success. If nobody ever remembers my successes, if I never make "disrupt" any industry, if I never get to retire, if my works are never immortalized, even if all my software becomes obsolete one day when the SDKs that I'm using no longer exist (which has already happened a few times), as long as I can pay for my family's food by solving problems for other people, I will be satisfied.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#119

Post by rifung »

> it's to the point where I'm questioning if I even want to be in this industry (although to be fair, I've been questioning that since before I got into software). What do you do to keep yourself motivated? Especially when you hit something you hate to work on but is necessary.

I sympathize with you greatly actually. I used to seriously hate work. Then one day I was fired (or more precisely I didn't get past the trial period) and unemployed. After that point I realized as much as I might dislike my job, I dislike it a lot less than the stress of being unemployed, going further and further into debt, and wondering how I can get a job.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#120

Post by adrianmsmith »

scarejunba wrote: post #114
SamWhited wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I hate Agile garbage. Just about everywhere I've ever worked has applied "agile" and all it's lead to is them building crap software quickly. I'm all for releasing early and often, but not "in whatever state". Have some pride and build good, well tested software.

I assume this is side project stuff. I don’t have a high standard for those. Not very prideful as an individual, tbh.

I’m not sure from the poster’s description it’s just a hobby project. They evidently want to charge their customers money, so there needs to be some level of quality in order for that to have a chance of working.
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