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A note to myself

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41–50 of 90 posts

Re: A note to myself

#43

  s/finish/launch/
You don't ever really finish anything, you just put it out in the world. I'd be happy if 10% of the things I create were publicly launched.

Re: A note to myself

#44
post #31

The single biggest mental hack I have for getting around this is this. Just write it down. As soon as I write it down and stick it on a list of product ideas it's out of my head and I can focus again. As a bonus you've got a nice list 'o' stuff that you can go poke through whenever you get some spare tuits. At the moment I have (pause to look at trello) 57 items on the company "Product Ideas" backlog. Two have come o…

I feel like once I write something down in a list it will dissappear into the 'backlog' forever.

Well, yeah, but if you start building it and get stuck halfway and give it up, it's still going to be stuck in backlog forever, only now you've wasted a few days on it.

Re: A note to myself

#45
post #39

Whenever I've tried leaving an insightful note for myself like this, over time it seems to completely lose its meaning. Definitely never as profound as when you read it the first couple times. Perhaps that would make a great app. Periodic anecdotes from yourself. /me checks the app store

Great idea. Stop whatever you are doing and work on that!

Re: A note to myself

#46
IMHO, sometimes we end working on things before the original concept of finished is achieved because those hacks are subconsciously self-serving and derive more personal-value in understanding everything about finishing than what we consciously believe the value of finishing is.

Re: A note to myself

#47
post #31

The single biggest mental hack I have for getting around this is this. Just write it down. As soon as I write it down and stick it on a list of product ideas it's out of my head and I can focus again. As a bonus you've got a nice list 'o' stuff that you can go poke through whenever you get some spare tuits. At the moment I have (pause to look at trello) 57 items on the company "Product Ideas" backlog. Two have come o…

I feel like once I write something down in a list it will dissappear into the 'backlog' forever.

I can see why you would think that, but then again, what's the other alternative? You either have time/resources to do it now, or you don't. As far as I can tell, you really have three choice: you can do it, forget it, or write it down. If you write it down, at least there's a fighting chance you'll revisit the idea when you do have time/resources.

Also, empirical observation shows me that, in my own case at least, things that are put on lists do sometimes get done eventually. I'm always obsessively making lists and writing down notes about possible new features for Quoddy, and over time I find that I do keep working further and further down the list... to the point that now I'm starting on stuff that was originally labelled "Speculative / TODO: Sometime Before The Heat Death Of The Universe".

Re: A note to myself

#48
post #18

http://www.workflowy.com Life-changing.

Is this a parody? Not to be cynical, but I'm curious how a nested to-do list can have such an impact that it prompts people to say "this made me cry."

For some reason there's an endless supply of people who eventually have the thought, "I should make a to-do-list app."

Re: A note to myself

#49
What works for me is telling other people about my project so there is some sort of social pressure to finish it. Also: spend some money on it. For example, hire a designer to create some nice logos for your app. As soon as you've spent some money on it, you'll have another trigger to finish the project, because it would be a waste of money if you don't.

Re: A note to myself

#50
post #4

I like that this note about discipline has itself become a distraction. To be true to the note would have meant finishing an idea in progress, rather than browsing to HN and posting.

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