Just do it. If you have any hesitation, you’re not cut out for this type of work.
Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
71–80 of 100 posts
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Don't diagnose people in 10 sentences Literally every single response here is doing that. The advice is fine, even if it would be bad for you personally.
Yeah whenever somebody doesn't want to get started on something I tell them they have burnout and should take 3 months off. I'm kind of a doctor now honestly. They probably also have ADHD and depression based on my analysis.
You're revealing more about yourself than either the advisor or the advisee.
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#73I find it helps to say "I'll just work on this for X minutes" and time myself. The Pomodoro Method is a simple way to get started, although personally I track time more granularly using a set of shell scripts, but the habit of recording when I start and stop focused work took a while to build up.
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#74I read from a book one thing that changed this cycle for me.
You expect to get motivation first, then start working. This thing not always work like that, it's self-enhancing cycle. Work -> Motivation -> Work -> Motivation...
The thing is you can start this cycle from any point. I.e. if you want to get motivation for work just start doing a little.
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#75I read from a book one thing that changed this cycle for me. You expect to get motivation first, then start working. This thing not always work like that, it's self-enhancing cycle. Work -> Motivation -> Work -> Motivation... The thing is you can start this cycle from any point. I.e. if you want to get motivation for work just start doing a little.
Elegant and insightful model. Many comments here follow this model. Thanks :)
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#76keep aside time for working say 1 hour for working and do work related stuff in that 1 hour i.e no hn, no reddit, facebook, ig, netflix or any other thing that you use for passing time. if you don't have work to do in that hour than spend time on thinking what to do next in that hour.
Idea is to create a routine, once routine is setup things happen by themselves as per my experience. Give it a try and see if it works for you.
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#77Form Habits
Change your environment and desktop
Put on your shoes
LeechBlock
Auto tab close
Desktop links
Put on music
If you only work when you feel like it, you'll fail. There will be hard times in which you have to persist. Work 2 minutes a day, develop a habit.
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#78I suspect depends a bit on what you're doing... but for me and the things I tend to work on, I tend to get scared by "big" projects that won't be "done" until some far off point in the future after loads of work, so my motivation is kept up by:
- Getting something "out there" + "working" as soon as possible. Even if _really_ rough, buggy, ugly, can't scale, only works in 1 case, needs a code change to work in any other etc...
- Keep it working with every change
- Every change is small. Potentially, teeny-tiny
Examples:
- Forking a project from GitHub. Have something working straight away! I've done a few project that literally have no lines of code in common with the original, except perhaps the license [so not appropriate for all projects]
- Releasing a website with whatever it is really early. Even if unstyled, no documentation, but does a tiny sliver of what you want it to do eventually. Then iterate, releasing the new version every single change.
- I think some people suggest avoiding tests in early stages of projects, but for me... some high-level tests on the "public facing" behaviour really helps give me the feeling that it's working as changes are made, and I'm never stepping backwards.
Things to avoid:
- Long running feature branches where lots of things are broken
- Refactoring without some sort of externally-facing feature in mind
- Low level tests of implementation details
- Working too much on "behind the scenes" stuff. You probably don't need a really fancy CI system that supports 100 developers deploying every day... [But: enough of a system for _you_ to release often is good]
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#79Something I find very helpful, to maintain productivity when working alone at home, is this:
- open Notepad
- at the top of the page, briefly describe your development goal - a concrete project or task
- below the first line, break it down into a list of manageable subtasks (just the first few - more will come as you progress)
- keeping the list open on a separate monitor, maintain your focus on the first subtask
- as you get through the subtasks, cross them out or delete them. Add more items or details as they come to mind.
That's it.
Re: Ask HN: Solo developer, what's your recipe to start working?
#80What works for me is picking a task that I estimate at about 10 to 15 minutes and just execute it. Even if it's just cleanup, or writing some docs, or polishing an API interface. If I haven't gained momentum after finishing this it means that today is not the day and I'll retry tomorrow. But usually it's enough to get me started and pick up more serious things.
10 to 15 minutes is short enough to not feel negative about having forced myself to do it, but long enough for me to "get in the mood"