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

#1

Post by SamWhited » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

I've been working on a small issue tracker for a few months, and it's been ready to release for a while, but I have one more hurdle that I just can't convince myself to overcome: billing. I hate working with the payment provider I've chosen (but they really do seem to be the easiest thing, others I've looked at are no better). I end up with horribly messy code from their terrible Go SDK, everyone says their documentation is great, but as far as I can tell there's a lot of it that all leaves out important information at every step, so I have to tease out how to deal with their million edge cases, etc. I've been putting off a billing rewrite for weeks now and not working towards an actual release; 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.

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

#2

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

What do you do to keep yourself motivated? Especially when you hit something you hate to work on but is necessary.

I don't really know how to tell you anything useful on this. A lot of my motivation seems to just be an intrinsic part of my personality. I don't generally have a hard time being motivated. I just love the process and act of building things.

Of course there are times when I hit the "schlep"[1] stuff, which is not as enjoyable. How I grind through that is just by reminding myself that it's inevitable and necessary, and that all the other hard work I put in will be worthless if I don't get this unpleasant stuff done and complete the project.

Lastly, and to be completely honest... as much as I enjoy building for the sake of building, I do also have financial goals. There are things I want to do, see, experience, etc., that require more money. And I see the projects I work on as a path to potentially being more wealthy than I am today. So while you may accuse me of being shallow, I do occasionally pick up an issue of Top Gear magazine, or Motor Trend, or whatever, and look at the cars I'd love to own one day, and remind myself "this is one of the reasons I work hard, and grind through the schleps". Or maybe it's a travel guide to some exotic locale I'd like to visit, or whatever.

And while it's (apparently) "politically incorrect" in this day and age to have, and openly acknowledge, a desire to attain significant wealth, I posit that there's nothing wrong with a drive to gain wealth, and to use that as a form of motivation.

So yeah, my motivation is a mixture of both intrinsic and extrinsic, but it's really more the former. I'd love building software even if I didn't get paid for it at all, and even if I weren't trying to build something to sell.

[1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html

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

#3

Post by davelnewton » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

If it's necessary then motivation is irrelevant. You don't have to be motivated, you have to work.

Your problem isn't motivation, it's not understanding that not all work is, or needs to be, pleasant, or intrinsically enjoyable.

Look at what your goal is: if the result isn't motivating, then the unpleasant work isn't the issue, rather your goal.

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

#4

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

davelnewton wrote: post #3

If it's necessary then motivation is irrelevant. You don't have to be motivated, you have to work. Your problem isn't motivation, it's not understanding that not all work is, or needs to be, pleasant, or intrinsically enjoyable. Look at what your goal is: if the result isn't motivating, then the unpleasant work isn't the issue, rather your goal.

[deleted]

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

#5

Post by WhompingWindows » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

Usually I just write down the easiest possible tasks that I know I can get done, and if that fails, I ask colleagues and mentors for ideas. Ask yourself what's an easy way to get started? Do you need to use a small carrot to reward yourself? Can you do it at a certain time of day under certain conditions? Can you collaborate with someone else to do the things you really don't want to?

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

#6

Post by jlj » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

Are you in a position to delegate or outsource the tedious parts?

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

#7

Post by vthallam » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

Is billing really important for your project? like can you release and iterate?

The biggest mistake I did when I was working on a reasonably bigger project is that I wanted all modules to be in there to Go Live, to the point I ended up fixing browser related bugs before I ship assuming users will hate the product if I don't.

I never ended up launching it and since then, I stuck to the real MVP, as in the smallest thing I could ship. This helped me launch 2 side projects and got insane confidence boost.

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

#8

Post by nyrulez » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

Motivation is a personal topic but there seem to be certain themes. I can share mine. I have been a solo founder for a few months and this is something I am also facing every single day.

- Have something to be excited about. There is the rational reason to do something, but there is also something that is emotional and exciting about it. It could be about seeing your idea used by many people, or just the vision of building something real out there (which is mighty hard by itself). It could be even things that will happen later as a result of this project - may be it will open up new avenues for you to do other exciting things, live a different lifestyle, boost your confidence and so on. I call it the "emotional fingerprint" that we tend to get excited about. Identify the biggest 1-3 things that excite you greatly, even if they are really "embarrassing" to share with others. Keep them on the fore-front of your mind every day.

- Have a few people in your network or outside it who can care about either you or the project, and make sure you talk to them regularly. Your cheerleaders. Show them what you are doing, get their feedback, look for signals. It can feel like a waste of time as an engineer, but in my experience really helps me get outside my own head.

- See frustrations as learning. Think about the long haul. Is this just a one time project you're doing or do you want to be in it for the longer term, perhaps for multiple projects down the road? anything worthwhile you'll do will have frustrating or unexpected elements built in. How you deal with them also strengthens you for the long run.

One mental approach I apply is to treat each difficulty as a puzzle to be solved. Every time you solve one, you become better at solving similar puzzles in the future. It is tempting to want to know the answers in advance to everything. Forego that temptation and embrace "puzzle-solving" everyday to issues you have never encountered before. What I am implying is "gamifying" this whole process a little bit. If you have played frustrating puzzle games before, you can perhaps relate.

Just my 2 cents on this topic :)

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

#9

Post by auspex » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

This always helped me: Baby steps over time walk a mile.

Just work on a something every day. It can be small or big it doesn't matter just make progress. Over time you will see how much you have accomplished.

Instead of thinking that you have to write the entire billing functionality, think I just need to get an API token from the server today, fix a typo or whatever... and if you aren't feeling motivated to continue after after the small task be done for the day.

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

#10

Post by 51lver » Mon, Jan 14, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

License the core to a saas company to pay per seat and let them handle billing.

Personally, I like micro-rewards for getting little tasks done. Things like, spending some time on a side project after doing some house chores, or grabbing a brewski after doing taxes. Little things. It could help if it is compatible with your voice-in-head firmware.