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

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

#61

Post by jungler »

First, make sure each task you're doing fits into a conceptually coherent whole. [0] This saves you time and effort learning that it isn't from the customer feedback. This also creates a motivational point beyond "I need this to make monies", since now building the software means you get to see an abstract philosophy come alive.

Second, design a schedule for yourself that both lets you take out and put away the project. If you aren't hugely inclined to solve programming puzzles that are created by other people's code, it's understandable; the trick is in making it not be the number one priority(because a boring task like this is no longer the fun learning stage of coding), but rather to make it one of many chores on your list. You have a household; there is always something to maintain in it, whether it's dry shoe leather, mildew on the walls, a load of laundry. Allocate 10 minutes each hour to that stuff, then return to the coding with the momentum from that. Huge blocks of screen time never helped anyone. (And yes, overall health matters. Getting more sleep, exercise, correcting a nutritional deficiency, can all be huge for motivation.)

During the coding, aim to finish it badly(placeholder level) and then go back and fix it in steps. These tasks get worse when you have to juggle a whole pile of new abstractions all at once: skip to a preset result and then work backwards from that into something that is configurable. Good code doesn't come out of your forehead fully formed, it takes some iteration.

If you don't have an estimate for how long anything takes, that's also a demotivator. You can calibrate one by finding a similar project, getting its start-to-release dates, and working backwards to get milestone dates. Don't worry about time per task, worry about the overall product coming into shape. Placeholders as milestone goals can help hugely in getting you to dig into the design and make it its best.

[0] http://ludamix.com/dive/

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

#62

Post by eweeks101 »

First off this sounds much deeper than just avoiding a payment integration, it sounds like you are questioning your whole career...? You'll have to pay me for that advice. LOL

You are not your own servant, negotiate with yourself. - Jordan Peterson

Why am I avoiding the task? How can I simplify the task? What would it take to accomplish the task? How can I incentivize the task? Make a deal with yourself.

Whether it's the stack of bills that accumulate on my desk or the dev task I'm avoiding I ask myself these questions. Most of the time I'm avoiding some sort of responsibility that I've told myself isn't too important, it can wait because I have more important things todo. That's a lie, it wouldn't be weighing on my mind or take up space on my desk if it wasn't important. So I negotiate, if I devote two hours and start at 3pm I'll call it quits around 5pm to head home and hang out with my family. Then 5pm roles around and you reassess the problem to make another negotiation. This time your negotiation is a little more specific because you have a better understanding of the responsibility. Then someday your task will be complete and you'll be more efficient, more educated, and more prepared for the next. Much easier said than done.

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

#63

Post by trevyn »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #27

Get married, buy a house, have kids. Then you know you have to finish your work because you are responsible for others.

>Get married, buy a house, have kids. Then you know you have to finish your work because you are responsible for others.

That’s like shooting yourself in the leg because you want stronger arms, and putting yourself in a wheelchair will help with that.

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

#64

Post by strictfp »

For what it's worth, I totally agree with you. Payment providers assume that you spend ages understanding their implementation and mental model. I think the main problem is that everyone thinks it's boring, so no talented coders have written an api that abstracts all the finicky details away.

When it comes to motivation, I usually pick my tasks in such a way that I don't exhaust myself. Typically, I would push a daunting task until I have a really good day and feel ready for a new challenge.

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

#65

Post by onemoresoop »

trevyn wrote: post #63
WillPostForFood wrote: post #27

Get married, buy a house, have kids. Then you know you have to finish your work because you are responsible for others.

> Get married, buy a house, have kids. Then you know you have to finish your work because you are responsible for others. That’s like shooting yourself in the leg because you want stronger arms, and putting yourself in a wheelchair will help with that.

You'd be surprised how great the motivation is when you have a kid. Especially the first years. And I was thinking just like you before taking this step.

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

#66

Post by 51lver »

swlkr wrote: post #17

I'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. M…

I love it. Treat tasks like trying to beat my galaga score instead of like a mario stage to get to the end of.

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

#67

Post by stanmancan »

It’s been said a few times now but either launch without billing or launch with manual billing. Set up a Freshbooks account and send people a recurring invoice every month. It only takes a minute to setup each user, you can launch without rewriting the billing side, and you can still get paid.

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

#68

Post by stickfigure »

SamWhited wrote: post #52
jenscow wrote: post #12

Yes, 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…

I should try contacting support; thanks. Some of the weird things I've run into are so poorly thought out that I can't believe they'd actually be an intentional part of their product. I've talked to some developers on their IRC channel, but typically (and this is something I strive as hard as possible not to do on my own projects), they were just so used to it that they couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't know ho…

I've worked with quite a few payments platforms over my career. Most of them are terrible, but even the good ones require adopting their conceptual model. Sometimes that can require some adjustment, especially if you already have preconceived notions of how you want billing to work.

Example: I was dumbfounded that Stripe lets you update a balance, but offers no way to do it atomically. Support was clueless. However, on the IRC channel someone suggested creating invoices instead of bumping the balance, which in retrospect is a much better idea than maintaining the history in my database (although it ties me deeper to their system).

You really have to "bend like a reed" and conform to their patterns. And whatever you do, don't try to create an abstraction across multiple billing systems until after you've built up some expertise.

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

#69

Post by mgolawala »

badatshipping wrote: post #35

Tell yourself you’ll spend five minutes working on it. This tricks your brain into thinking it’s not a big pain commitment. Once you’ve spent five minutes immersed in it you’ll be more willing to keep working. Another trick is to break down the task into as many subtasks as you can, and when you’re feeling obstinate about working, just get one small subtask done. It also helps you visualize the finiteness of the tota…

I use this exact method to get myself to workout when I am not feeling like it. I tell myself I will slack off and not really go hard today. ie. It's better to do a workout at 75% effort than skip it altogether. Inevitably, once I start I find myself working out as I normally would.

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

#70

Post by mgolawala »

tjkrusinski wrote: post #31

One day, you will be dead. Each year that passes after your death, fewer and fewer people will remember who you were, what you did or what your face looked like. Eventually, you'll be completely forgotten. Who cares if that side project you put out sucked or not. Might as well put it out there and see what people think. There's a good chance too that the project won't even be remembered even by the time you die. The…

That line of thinking can also be quite demotivating. For instance, it could also be used to argue that since none of what I do matters anyway, I might as well spend it doing something else such as watching TV, playing video games, hiking in the forests, reading a good book, etc.
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