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How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

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Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#31

Post by ZainRiz »

nicbou wrote: post #19

That was a tedious read. Most of the article is just filler text. There is a whole page of it before the point: give yourself 3 years. Why 3 years? Because Rome wasn't built in a day. That's pretty much all there is to it. The advice feels pretty circular. To stay motivated, do it for 3 years. If you can commit to something for 3 years, you already have the motivation. Regardless, I disagree with this advice. Give it…

Instead of focusing on a goal for three years, try to focus on a goal that you can achieve in two weeks (or whatever your default attention span is)

Design each two week goal so that you get a dopamine rush from doing it, get some value out of it, and it also helps your long term goal.

I share my attempt at doing just that here: https://www.zainrizvi.io/blog/do-more-by-doing-less/

Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#32

Post by nickjj »

I think it really just boils down to doing something you like and believing in your decision to do it.

For example if you're looking at a new tech stack and after some weeks or months of developing something with it. If it's not everything you thought it would be, or you're no longer 100% on board, no amount of motivation is going to keep you moving forward to build your app. It'll feel like absolute dread every time you think about opening your code editor.

I've been consistently blogging for 5+ years (at least 1 weekly post) and I still find it super enjoyable. It doesn't feel like I need motivation because it's doing something I genuinely believe in and want to do.

Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#33

Post by nwienert »

nicbou wrote: post #19

That was a tedious read. Most of the article is just filler text. There is a whole page of it before the point: give yourself 3 years. Why 3 years? Because Rome wasn't built in a day. That's pretty much all there is to it. The advice feels pretty circular. To stay motivated, do it for 3 years. If you can commit to something for 3 years, you already have the motivation. Regardless, I disagree with this advice. Give it…

Disagree, many (most?) things worth doing and doable take more than a month to get used to or to get to the good part. I’ve definitely not “hit my stride” until month 8 or so of certain projects of which I adore once I do. Keep at it so long as you believe in the mission.

Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#34

Post by neymgm »

nicbou wrote: post #19

That was a tedious read. Most of the article is just filler text. There is a whole page of it before the point: give yourself 3 years. Why 3 years? Because Rome wasn't built in a day. That's pretty much all there is to it. The advice feels pretty circular. To stay motivated, do it for 3 years. If you can commit to something for 3 years, you already have the motivation. Regardless, I disagree with this advice. Give it…

I disagree with the part that if you're doing it for the reward then it won't get anywhere. Mainly because of what you say: we do what we do to make a living.

However, I believe that statement applies more to the vision/philosophy of our projects. A professor once recommended us to set ourselves an unreachable goal to keep driving your project/company/employees forward towards a common goal. They gave us an example of Bimbo –a Mexican food industry company– that states as its philosophy: "Feed, delight and serve our world, this is our philosophy." They'll never really be able to feed the entire world but they're sure as hell going for it. Though whether a such big corporation's real interest is doing so is another discussion altogether. Even if that was their original intention.

I read this article and think about my goals to become a Game Developer. I take the advice of setting expectations for a couple of years down the road as a way to keep learning and investing the time that's required to become what I wish to become. I shouldn't be naive to apply this to a particular game project at the earlier stages of my career. In my case I should take on multiple projects that will broaden my knowledge regarding game design, architecture, project management, etc.

Article gave me much more to think about than I though it would.

Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#35

Post by _7fvc »

I started working on a long-term project 1.5 years ago. It's in cryptocurrency. People in crypto would call it a shitcoin project. Up until now, it's a solo project. I'm the only person working on it. Not much outside interest. But I learn some things along the way.

When you think about the expected or probable ROI, you'd likely give up. These projects or ideas will likely fail. You have less than 1% chance of success. You're trying to calculate the extreme tail risk. It's not worth the time to think about it. The process is demoralizing.

One trait that I found useful for these long-term ideas: curiosity. If you're curious about something, you can do it for a long time. You still do it even when you know it would likely fail. During the process, you can learn things that are not exactly applicable for your idea. But they are useful for your learning.

Another aspect to think about is to find the failure criteria. You can decide when your long-term idea is invalid. When you see X happens, you know X would invalidate your idea. X is the correct idea, your idea is incorrect. At that point, you can stop.

An example: I have a hypothesis that battery electric cars may not be the future. I work on alternative ideas. A failure criteria for my idea: When battery electric cars have more than 50% market share. This example illustrates the unpopularity of working on long-term ideas. People would call you stupid. You'll likely fail. Curiosity is the only thing that keeps you going.

Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#36

Post by historyremade »

_7fvc wrote: post #35

I started working on a long-term project 1.5 years ago. It's in cryptocurrency. People in crypto would call it a shitcoin project. Up until now, it's a solo project. I'm the only person working on it. Not much outside interest. But I learn some things along the way. When you think about the expected or probable ROI, you'd likely give up. These projects or ideas will likely fail. You have less than 1% chance of succes…

Hey Scammer, Prepare to loose. Crypto is complete scam.

Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#37

Post by warent »

ZainRiz wrote: post #31
nicbou wrote: post #19

That was a tedious read. Most of the article is just filler text. There is a whole page of it before the point: give yourself 3 years. Why 3 years? Because Rome wasn't built in a day. That's pretty much all there is to it. The advice feels pretty circular. To stay motivated, do it for 3 years. If you can commit to something for 3 years, you already have the motivation. Regardless, I disagree with this advice. Give it…

Instead of focusing on a goal for three years, try to focus on a goal that you can achieve in two weeks (or whatever your default attention span is) Design each two week goal so that you get a dopamine rush from doing it, get some value out of it, and it also helps your long term goal. I share my attempt at doing just that here: https://www.zainrizvi.io/blog/do-more-by-doing-less/

For some reason what has always worked for me is just abandoning rational thought entirely and working day-to-day.

I go into a project thinking "I bet I can get 50% to 100% of this thing done today" and that's almost never the case, but the thought of it gets me excited. That's all the motivation I need. I work like crazy until I'm ready to stop working. I say "Wow I sure made a lot of progress. Tomorrow I'll probably finish it off." feeling satisfied. This repeats forever. Maybe it's a kind of madness, but it gets the job done!

Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#38

Post by nullsense »

A lot of filler in the article, but the basic premise is something I've often done when wanting to accomplish something significant. View it on a 3 year time horizon from the outset.

Its not an appropriate technique for everything you tackle, but for certain things it's great.

Re: How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

#39

Post by test6554 »

nicbou wrote: post #19

That was a tedious read. Most of the article is just filler text. There is a whole page of it before the point: give yourself 3 years. Why 3 years? Because Rome wasn't built in a day. That's pretty much all there is to it. The advice feels pretty circular. To stay motivated, do it for 3 years. If you can commit to something for 3 years, you already have the motivation. Regardless, I disagree with this advice. Give it…

I disagree with this advice. Give it a day tops. If you don't enjoy the process after a day and the goal is a month away, you won't get there.
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