Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 180 posts

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

#131

Post by 3pt14159 »

Well this might actually answer something you deeply dislike: The shitty SDK problem.

I've worked on way, way too many credit card apps that charged money for other people (two invoicing platforms, one ticketing site, one photo social network) and the myriad of issues with credit cards and fraud and other problems have led me to the conclusion that unless you have a really, really good reason to do otherwise it is better to either:

1. Outsource this to a better API that takes a percent cut, but handles all the edge-cases like refunds and GDPR compliance for you.

2. If that doesn't work, and you're stuck with a shitty SDK, it's easier to just use a better supported language. (Even a general purpose library like Active Merchant.) It's trivial to create a shim for this and the separation is really clean. Why bother with Go if it's hard? For now just hack it together.

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

#132

Post by robbrown451 »

mango_ wrote: post #122
robbrown451 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the works, really! But right now I am on a schedule and don't have time to do something for public consumption. :) However, I'll add a few things. Optimum group size is about 7-10. Everyone has a monitor, that is, a person who is holding them accountable. These get randomly switched out every two weeks. You never are monitoring your own monitor. Every monitor has a manager. Again, switched out randomly every…

This seems like a very effective solution, thanks for the idea.

No problem. We're going to start a new group (and also do a web site and an app), maybe you'd like to join?

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

#133

Post by stunt »

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

In addition to other recommendations,

Learn the basics of Product Design and UX Design. It is a useful skill and a nice addition for you if you are building something. It helps you in prioritization, problem mapping, writing proper user stories, and teaches you to think about user journey and define project goals.

And by having those, you will feel closer to the end user which gives you the motivation to work on the project.

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

#134

Post by neven »

quadcore wrote: post #130
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…

Yes to that. There is this guy who once broke his leg climbing a big snowy mountain. He was alone and got to go back in the valley. But it could barely walk, was dehydrated and hungry. In very bad shape. What he did was looking ahead a couple hundred meters and telling himself "Ok, I just go there and stop". Once he got there, he was like "I might just go there and stop". He reaches the valley and got saved.

This sounds like Touching the Void (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379557/).

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

#135

Post by iliomad »

riebschlager wrote: post #39
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…

I usually like to save my existential crises for later in the week, but thanks for helping me dive right into it on a Monday morning.

Also laughed out loud at this. Thanks :)

It's also quite a freeing way of approaching a project - as long as I don't go to the extreme of not caring at all!

Reminds me of the "pale blue dot" perspective - when stressed visualise planet earth from further and further away.....

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

#136

Post by scarejunba »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #129
scarejunba wrote: post #82

By applying the Agile methodology. I just stick it out there in whatever state and let people have access.

That’s not really what agile is about. It is about early feedback, so yes the customer might see an incomplete product. This is similar to watching a bespoke house being built. As long as they wear a hard hat, it’s ok for the client to inspect the footings.

Hang on, I don’t understand the distinction you’re making. I definitely think the customer should see it as soon as they can they see something.

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

#137

Post by kennxfl »

mgolawala wrote: post #70
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.

Not in this case. It directly relates to launching side projects without consideration for perfection which provides quick feedback.

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

#138

Post by quickthrower2 »

scarejunba wrote: post #136
quickthrower2 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really what agile is about. It is about early feedback, so yes the customer might see an incomplete product. This is similar to watching a bespoke house being built. As long as they wear a hard hat, it’s ok for the client to inspect the footings.

Hang on, I don’t understand the distinction you’re making. I definitely think the customer should see it as soon as they can they see something.

The distinction is just the communication. If they know it won’t work but it’s a prototype for feedback then that is agile.

If they think they are getting a full working product that’s .... something else!

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

#139

Post by scarejunba »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #138
scarejunba wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hang on, I don’t understand the distinction you’re making. I definitely think the customer should see it as soon as they can they see something.

The distinction is just the communication. If they know it won’t work but it’s a prototype for feedback then that is agile. If they think they are getting a full working product that’s .... something else!

Oh right. Fair enough. Yeah, I assumed that was implicit. Good call out.
Post reply on HN