HN, I need to learn how to ship

#1

Post by fooboy » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 3:29 AM UTC

(Using my favorite throwaway account.)

The title says it all, HN. I can't ship.

This isn't about shipping the first version of my nascent startup's web app, though. This is about completing anything in life, putting a big bow on it, and calling it done. I'm terrible about finishing things in all areas of my life, whether it's chores around the house, libraries I need to finish at work, or OSS bugs I've promised -- but failed -- to patch.

I hate it, too, because it is a particularly flaky behavior characteristic of people who are "big talkers" or commit to doing too much. I don't want to be unreliable, but I really just struggle to finish things up.

Has anyone solved this problem for themselves? Have you gone from someone who underproduces to one who knocks things out of the park? I'd love to hear your advice.

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#2

Post by tait » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 3:31 AM UTC

Have you looked at the Meyers-Briggs personality types? If not, you might read that to get some insight into your personality and how it's different from others around you.

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#3

Post by fooboy » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 3:32 AM UTC

tait wrote: post #2

Have you looked at the Meyers-Briggs personality types? If not, you might read that to get some insight into your personality and how it's different from others around you.

I've definitely looked before. How would being INTJ or INTP (somewhere between the two) affect anything?

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#4

Post by patio11 » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 3:49 AM UTC

Chores around the house: if this causes you more than five minutes of mental stress, outsource it. Some people can program, some people can carry boring tasks to completion, these people should trade to maximize their mutual welfare.

Projects: Accept that "shipped" is less of a binary "Is it perfect and ready to ship, if not it is still in development" decision and more of a totally arbitrary point of technical/marketing readiness at which you call something shipped. You'll continue improving it later, but that is no excuse for not getting it in front of customers (be they paying customers, your boss, or the other OSSers) today.

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#5

Post by badabadam » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 3:50 AM UTC

A woman had a compulsive habit of tearing papers to shreds.

Her friends and family thought there was some mental problem. So they took her to see different psychologists and sought after psychiatric treatment.

One psychologist asked her about her childhood, to see whether that had any impact on her compulsive behaviour.

Another psychiatrist measured her brain waves, and analyzed to see if there anything in there.

One after another, numerous tests were done, but each day, the woman was keep tearing papers to shreds.

Finally there was only one psychologist left in the town to see. When she went to see him, he stared at her and simply said.

"Stop tearing papers."

And she stopped.

----------------------

SHIP that thing.

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#6

Post by dabogy » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 4:04 AM UTC

My suggestion would be to break down whatever you are doing into smaller tasks. Instead of thinking, I need to do this...and this...and this...and this...and this...and this in order to complete...change your mindset to "I just need to do this small task to complete". Once you complete the small task, then move on to the next one. Each goal will be smaller, so you should have more frequent completions. Start from there and work your way up

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#7

Post by coderdude » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 4:23 AM UTC

Ship it half-working. Launch the user-facing things that have to work right away and make as much as you can a manual process. Work out of PHPMyAdmin if you can to save time on fleshing out that backend that will be super tedious to build. Don't try to make the site look perfect. Just make it passable. Put off as absolutely much as you can if you are the kind of person that "can't ship." Once you've shipped then you've gotten past that hurdle. You can build the features as they become more pressing.

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#8

Post by bawllz » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 4:29 AM UTC

Maybe you are trying to do to much? If you can find people that have similar interest to yours, and have skills which are applicable to building your ideas, I'd recommend teaming up with that person. It helps a lot having someone to not only push you along to the finish line, but also to do some of the running as well.

I had a similar issue where I would start projects, implement a bunch of it, and seemingly never finish any of it. I got in touch with some friends who enjoy design and from there I started doing back-end things and leaving the design implementing to a friend. Not only did he push me to hit milestones but I did the same for him.

Also make sure you are picking projects that the end result is something that you yourself want to use. That way, you will have a little extra motivation when it comes to finishing.

Good luck!

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#9

Post by ricolicous » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 5:06 AM UTC

What's worked for me is a two pronged approach:

1. Eliminate from my life things which need my attention. I've found that I can only focus on two things at a time: one work thing and one personal thing. That's it.

2. Relentlessly remove distractions and focus on the one or two tasks right in front of me that need to get done. Only when those are done do I come up for air and think about what I should be working on.

Basically I think of myself as a processor with a tiny pool of RAM. I can only work on one thing at a time (my one work or one personal thing). I can keep one other thing in RAM (the remainder of my one work and one personal things). Trying to add another thing means that I need to start hitting disk and performance gets exponentially worse.

Re: HN, I need to learn how to ship

#10

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, Jul 19, 2012, 5:06 AM UTC

Shipping anything is a matter of knowing when it's good enough. Some people are good at deciding on the fly; others need to know ahead of time and it sounds like you need to know when to stop before you even start.

So before you begin something, decide what "done" looks like and learn to stop when you are in the "done" state. Sometimes, "done" changes. Not a problem, just understand what it means to be done and do that, no more.