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It might be better to get some value out of it and/or convince your brain why it's worth doing.
The things I have finished are nearly all things I have put a price tag on.
They may have been done before I shipped them, but most weren't. But once there's the threat of real users sending you money and expecting things to work, that's incentive enough to actually wrap up loose ends and polish what's there.
Notice that what actually happened was a slight redefinition of "finished" to include all the features that currently work, with non-working features hidden and no pointy bits sticking out the sides. As distinct from "all the things I wanted to include are now working to my satisfaction."
Eventually you can work toward including all those other things, but step one is to polish what's there. Then it's just a matter of polishing each additional feature after they're built and before they're exposed to users.
That being said, I do finish side projects from time to time, mostly because I can still see the potential after working on it for a couple of ours.
My recent workflow has been this: 1. Put the project in a private GitHub repo. Paying for it adds incentive to work on it. 2. Break up the work into small tasks and add them as issues in the GitHub project. Aggressively separate them into milestones to stay focused (Milestone 1 == MVP, less important stuff in Milestone 2, etc). The reason I think this works is that it is easy to get overwhelmed by all the work on a s…
I run it in a docker on my Unraid (file)server, all easily managed via webinterface.
It's been frusrtating.
Do people find it worth the time to read books on productivity like Getting Things Done, Eat that Frog, etc.? And learning more about things like Org mode? Or are those essentially procrastination enablers? Is see that most people are working on software personal projects. Anyone have thoughts getting "hardware" projects done?
1) Define a single, easily understood high-level goal. Something that's easily understood and can be accomplished in a timespan of days or weeks. It's important that this is not defined technically, but in terms of what the application can actually do.
2) Repeatedly ask myself whether what I'm doing is directly contributing to the current goal, or is required to reach it. If it's not, stop doing it and figure out what's going to get me there the fastest.
3) Wake up early and work on my project before doing anything else. Every morning I wake up, take a shower, kiss my partner on the forehead and then I am out the door to work on my project at the cafe down the street. This is the part of the day where my mind is the most fresh, and it's not possible that something else has taken my attention and distracted me from the goal at hand, or tired me out so much I don't have the energy to work on it. Also once you get in the habit it's hard not to work on it once you wake up.
2. Break it into smaller tasks.
3. Prioritize those tasks and start with the easiest.
4. This is not time to learn, this is time to build. Use only tools that you know. Even if you know there is a better way, do it the best worse way that you know than the better best way you have heard of but don't know and will have to stop and learn. This is key, separate learning and building.
5. Work on it everyday, at a consistent time, preferable first thing in the morning.
6. Since you will be waking up early, go to bed early too and get enough sleep.
7. Work on only one project at a time, meaning, you can't work on other projects in between. Everything else goes on hold till this is completed.
8. Find ways to motivate and inspire yourself when you are feeling mentally down and low and focus is hard to come by. If you really like music, don't listen to it all the time. work without it, when you find yourself drained, that's when you should turn on music. Unless you absolutely can't work without it. Whatever that gives you extra boost, hold off from it till you really need it. Coffee? Don't drink it, till you need it. Think of it like power up. Save it till you need it.
9. Is it ship date? Release it, only 70% done? Release it!
Here are my suggestions: 1. Work on your project most days. It doesn't need to be long - 15-30 minutes. This is mentally doable most days, and you'll find days that you just work. After a while, this becomes part of your daily routine and it gets easier. It might be even easier if you do right after something else you do every day - yup, make it a habit. 2. Have a variety of tasks to choose from when you can. This he…
My preference most of the time is to optimize for discontinuity since it is usually inevitable and I want to minimize negative pressure producers. "Being in the flow" is great for productivity and all but I'd rather not count on it or optimize for it. Instead:
#1 When exiting a work session, I write on a Post-it note the next immediate steps/chunks/steps in order of priority. I usually also write down the next theoretical milestone/goal these steps are part. Sometimes I'll even write down the tentative 2nd milestone.
Note that this is separate from my Github-based task tracking and kanban board. That system is for when I'm in the flow and can have reasonable expectations of continuity (and when working with others).
This technique minimizes "spinning up". Instead of having to mentally conceptualize the project and all its tasks to start working, I just start working and let the full scope of the project flow into my brain as I progress.
If I enter flow state as a result, great. If I don't, no biggie — something gets done and I'm off to the next thing in life. #2 and #3 fit right in here. Rinse and repeat.
Disclaimer: I like colored Post-it notes.