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Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#11

Post by edo »

Conciously replicate the feelings you had when you started.

Your seemingly unlimited drive is not something providential, it is something you can 'conjure' up, by consciously shaping your every thoughts:

Try and go a day focused only on the most awesome outcome of your goals. Actually imagine and feel that outcome as if it already happened. Do this constantly and before you know it, you will suddenly have the same 'Hyper-interest' and motivation you had in the early beginnings.

Cheers, Edo van Royen

Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#13

Post by bdickason »

onceuponkauai wrote: post #9

don't quit on something until you've seen it through, and if you do decide to quit on it, try to get some value out of it if you know someone that can take some of your old stuff to 100% completion and still own some of it, whatever that is. This applies to a product, not so much a WoW account.

Funny you mention that, my last 'project' that I got passionate about was returning to WoW (I played about 5 years ago) and it followed this same 6 month pattern.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#14

Post by vdoma »

Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Yes, not all times are going to be interesting, you may lose motivation, get tired or bored, have setbacks, and want to give up, but it is only when you keep going on, that you complete the race.

A clear idea of goals and self-discipline are what separate the extra-ordinary people from the rest.

But since you're working on a startup, sometimes it's important to know when to give up rather than pursue an unsuccessful idea. But I'm sure enough people have talked about this.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#15

Post by jey »

What do you mean "burn out"? Does this actually mean that you get to tedious parts and stop working on it, even though it's worth finishing? Or is it not worth finishing but you feel some obligation to 'finish' for its own sake?

The real question to ask yourself is whether reward_of_finishing * probability_of_reward > costs_of_finishing. If not, you're better off taking the lessons you've learned and moving on to the next project and cutting your losses. The important thing is to not lose sight of the actual goals/rewards that you want, and asking yourself whether your actions are putting you on an effective path toward them.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#16

Post by percept »

bdickason wrote: post #7
patio11 wrote: post #4

Could it be a fear of success? Or of stretching outside of your comfort zone? Or of the long stretch of hard work after the bloom is off the rose? You're better informed about your psyche than I am, but I suggest pacing yourself, staying grounded to the other things in life which matter to you in addition to this startup, and carrying it through to completion.

I don't know if it's fear of success, but I think the stretch of hard work is a good one. Perhaps it's also a result of an unrealistic roadmap? i.e. I want A, B, and C to happen in X amount of time (hoping i can use that description w/ all the nerds here) and we're barely scratching the surface of A. I think that accepting that it take 6 months to get anything decent STARTED is a good place to start :)

Maybe both?

How about breaking your large A, B, and C tasks down into much smaller ones (something I definitely need to do)? Then you can just work off your lists and check, check, check without a lot of mental thrashing about.

This would also help with setting a more realistic schedule.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#17

Post by jonpaul »

vdoma wrote: post #14

Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Yes, not all times are going to be interesting, you may lose motivation, get tired or bored, have setbacks, and want to give up, but it is only when you keep going on, that you complete the race. A clear idea of goals and self-discipline are what separate the extra-ordinary people from the rest. But since you're working on a startup, sometimes it's important to know when to give u…

This is so true. We're going through this same problem right now [http://techneur.com for the interested]. We get unmotivated and get confused thinking that we are following the wrong path. When what we need to do is to just follow our small goal, which is to bootstrap. This is far harder than I ever imagined, and this is my third time around! First two were failures.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#18

Post by franck »

mdolon wrote: post #10

I really do feel your pain, as I have been through similar mental struggles before (and still do occasionally). One remedy I've found is to release a MVP or show your work to others, as it helps to reaffirm what you are doing isn't a complete waste of time. Launch early if you can and once people start using your it or you start making money, it's much easier to keep pushing forward. This one is more of a reminder to…

I completely agree with this. I tend to be bored by projects when I don't release the stuff I'm working on soon enough.

Knowing that your product/service is relevant, because you got early feedback, is the biggest motivation factor which helps you not to lose interest in the long run.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#19

Post by jacquesm »

I jokingly called it 'tass' (toddlers attention span syndrome), and I've had it since I was three.

Buying toys for me was according to my family the stuff of nightmares. I'd play with something for 3 minutes really excited, then see if it could be taken apart and if not toss it aside and never look at it again. And the ones that I could take apart suffered the same lot, only in bits and pieces.

It took me a long long time to outgrow that, I still have to be very careful when I am exposed to something new and shiny to stay away from screwdrivers.

In software projects I have much the same tendency, as long as it is challenging, new and I can learn it's ok. But woe the day the last bolt is screwed on to the carriage, that's when I'm in real danger to lose interest. Building is great, maintaining is not, so I try to build things in a way that they are as maintenance free as possible (which is good anyway).

If the money would be the motivating factor (or the 'desire to change the world' as some other commenter put it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1369566), then it would be easy to keep going.

But for me the driving force is to learn, and it's hard to keep 'learning' the same stuff over and over again. So I try to frame my days and the things I have to do that are not exactly 'new' in terms of what I will learn from them, and if I can then I can usually do the job in a reasonable time.

If not, I have a tendency to make mountains out of molehills.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

#20

Post by bdickason »

jey wrote: post #15

What do you mean "burn out"? Does this actually mean that you get to tedious parts and stop working on it, even though it's worth finishing? Or is it not worth finishing but you feel some obligation to 'finish' for its own sake? The real question to ask yourself is whether reward_of_finishing * probability_of_reward > costs_of_finishing. If not, you're better off taking the lessons you've learned and moving on to the…

By 'Burn Out' I mean literally stop thinking about it subconsciously. This can even be something that I _WANT_ to continue doing, but just don't feel any motivation.

A good example: I worked with a small team on a web project for a company I worked for. We sprinted sprinted to get it out there and it grew very rapidly. Nearly 500k uniques in 3 months.

For some reason, even though I was working on it every day until launch (roughly 6 months time) and VERY adamant about fixing things for the first 2 weeks or so, I eventually just stopped browsing the site, stopped reading users' posts, and stopped responding to e-mail from them.

I found something new and I ran with it.

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