I split time. I have things I like to do and things I have to do. I often keep a couple projects going at a time. I make a reasonable milestone and do the drudgery in the morning until I hit it (often midday, sometimes later, sometimes earlier), then I give myself the rest of the day for fun. This can be researching new tech, working on a project I actually enjoy, etc. I'm only worth a half-day of sucky work each day anyways, whether I self-motivate or languish, so might as well knock it out.
Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
11–20 of 180 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#12Yes, been there. A few times.
Payment processors are awful to work with... and it's sometimes tricky to test with.
They really do make you question your desire to remain on this planet, let alone continue to work on it!
I've found that more documentation they provide just adds to the confusion and contradictions. Sometimes contacting support helps... more often than not, they'll provide you with a key ingredient that isn't even in the documentation!
(failing that, for 1.0 just go for a Paypal button)
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#13License 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.
How do you go about doing this (licensing the core to another company)? Do you call up SaaS companies in the phone book until the receptionist connects you with the VP of New Indie Product Acquisition?
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#14Regarding payments I'd suggest you integrate with something that handles all the tax compliance responsibilities and invoicing for you. You can relatively easily do it yourself with a few weekends work, but it's not really worth it when you are just getting started (especially as you don't know if your business will take off).
I went the hard route and integrated Stripe from the get go, but am now planning to move to Paddle as the amount of work I have to do to enter invoices into my accountants system each month isn't worth it for what I'm making right now.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#15Is 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 thi…
I wanted to answer with the same theme - don't wait to have billing perfected on all edge cases, focus on covering the normal cases and release. You can always go back and fix those edge cases later, if they even ever happen to you.
More in general, when you have a mountain that looks too high to conquer, set a partial goal that looks achievable and only focus on that one, without thinking about the end goal until you reach the partial one. This helps a lot in my experience.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#16Is 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 thi…
For the first couple of customers just use Square / Stripe and do manual billing and invoicing.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#17I've drastically reduced the motivation required to complete projects.
I set daily goals at the start of the day, really small ones and then by the end of the day, I complete at least one of those goals and then that's it. It might take 20 minutes to an hour to add a bit of code that will go into the final feature.
Then I mark that I did that task and keep track of my "streak".
That's the thing that keeps me going. My streak is 13 days now, since the beginning of the year on my current project. I'm not going to break it now. It's less about the project and more about the streak.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#18Is 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 thi…
I agree here, billing is not something I would put in an MVP. Odds are no one will sign up, or so few people will sign up that that billing code will just go to waste.
Bill manually for the first few customers.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#19This seems more like eating broccoli than keeping up motivation. If that's the case then it's better to force feed yourself. Clear your schedule, pick a day, go into your /etc/hosts and block every other site that you don't need in order to finish your rewrite, drink a cup of coffee and then don't leave your seat except to go to the bathroom. If the work spills into the next day then so be it but get it done in one session. There is no easy way around working with code you hate. Some people say use moderation and do it slowly but dealing with badly cooked broccoli sucks. Shove it down your throat and finish with a chaser.
If you want it badly enough then just force it. The rewrite should only happen once.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?
#20Discipline > motivation. There are lots of good texts about it, better than I can summarize. Google discipline vs motivation.