According to me, discipline is the key to every success. To remain in discipline means you have to do every work in a disciplined manner. Make it a habit rather than just follow the disciplined manners for a few days.
Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?
171–177 of 177 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?
#172at 25%-50% you hit the "resent horizon" at this point you need to refactor - because let's face it - the code has started to smell and debugging becomes REALLY annoying. Refactoring is a totally different mindset, akin to gardening, but if you learn to like refactoring you'll always finish
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?
#173I'm convinced that almost nobody is good at the whole cycle of creating/maintaining something. Some people are great at coming up with new ideas but quickly bore with the implementation. Some people can relentlessly improve on an existing thing but can't come up with the initial idea. Some people are great stewards of an established program but don't thrive in the chaos of rapid iteration. I think instead of trying t…
I tend to agree, but there are major exceptions in open source software: - Guido van Rossum wrote the first line of Python in 1989 or so (started) - He released the first version on Useset pretty quickly ("finished" the MVP) - He worked on himself for four years or so (maintaining, improving) - Then other people started contributing for 25 years or so (leading) So I would say he's able to do all 3 things, plus lead t…
stop starting and start finishing
for normal people, yes it might be easier to have a part in something that's bigger than them.
But some really great projects had someone that owned it start to finish
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?
#174Create habits.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also read atomic habits recently. I found it really helpful for these types of problems. As the author says, accomplishing things is brought by building good systems and forming automatic habits. Not by fighting urges off left and right. I started going to the gym again after a few years off. It was really hard at 1st to simply keep my gym schedule. Now, I go to the gym no matter what because it's simply what I do.…
Read self-help books until they all start sounding the same
I'm not sure, based on your sentence structure, whether that was a "command" or your personal experience.
Regardless, sometimes, "self-help" books do come through on their promise. I found AH gave me good tools to build new habits by exposing me to the idea of designing my environment to push good habits. That's all.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?
#176My discipline comes from a lifetime of sports and has carried over to my work life (even though I now do martial arts as a hobbyist instead of competing as a college athlete); many of these can be read as workout / health points but are actually applicable across your life. It starts from the long-term goal: if you want to be extraordinary, you need to do things differently than the ordinary. People are going to give…
Thanks. Your comment is really thought-provoking.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?
#177As a general impression, it sounds like you might be putting too much stock in external validation instead of looking within, and then losing interest when society or your peers neglect to keep it coming your way. To answer your question, here is my specific methodology for long term personal projects. 1) Do some work on it every day if possible so as not to lose my train of thought. Even if it's only a tiny amount o…
thanks!