I know i like tech stuff and i do great stuff when i'm motivated the problem is how do i keep this motivation going? what is it that you do to keep the motivation on.
Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#2I stumbled across a site on here called http://getinspired365.com that dishes out daily inspiring/motivating quotes and videos. I find it a good way to start my day but my friend who uses it dips in and out as and when his motivation levels drop..
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#3Motivation is something personal, you have to find what motivates yourself. There is books on that, but I can't advise you as I never used them.
As I see it, the key for doing things is to begin, then to focus. Can't focus ? Do another. Just keep doing. Motivation is not really something that helps you when you are doing, it's something that helps you to begin and to end.
But is motivation the only way to begin and end things ? Obviously not. Duty, deadlines, promises, anything that make you morally engaged in an action. So, go set some goals ! Make it as a timeline with deadlines, make it as a flat TODO, make it as a scrumy (http://scrumy.com is a great service), try, fail, repeat until you win.
There is no way to find the good one until you tried it. So keep doing things, be amazing. ;-)
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#4For me, the motivation comes by having other people use and respond to the software I create. This means getting out of my developer bubble and doing some marketing. When people are engaging with your creations in a positive way, it's hard to not be motivated.
I think this applies to any software product that is written with the intention of having someone else use it, open source or otherwise.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#5Motivation is something personal, you have to find what motivates yourself. There is books on that, but I can't advise you as I never used them. As I see it, the key for doing things is to begin, then to focus. Can't focus ? Do another. Just keep doing . Motivation is not really something that helps you when you are doing, it's something that helps you to begin and to end. But is motivation the only way to begin and…
Duty, deadlines, promises, anything that make me morally engaged does not actually get me to do good work as this drives me to procrastinate and do stuff at the absolute last minute.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#6I stumbled across a site on here called http://getinspired365.com that dishes out daily inspiring/motivating quotes and videos. I find it a good way to start my day but my friend who uses it dips in and out as and when his motivation levels drop..
thanks, it looks good i'll try it
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#7Finding and remembering why you're doing anything in any situation is motivation.
How much we want to do anything, is relative to how energized, focused, and passionate we feel about it, or more importantly, take time to regularly reflect on.
Motivation, as classically defined doesn't fit techies that well because we march to own drum so much. Those that fall for someone else's koolaid can end up jaded and on the same search imho.
Motivation is like bathing.
If we don't bathe our body, we begin to smell and not feel fresh.
Similarly, our thoughts, feelings, and gut begin to smell from having not enough energy placed on hitting the reset button and starting fresh with a clear reminder.
What can do it? Remembering why. Also, things like meditation, exercise, going for a walk, etc can be very powerful to clear your senses to deeply embed the why. Over time it resonates more and more on it's own.
No one can learn about you for you, you have to dedicate time to it just like the time you have to dedicate yourself to technology.
Motivation for me is remembering why I want to do things at a very deep level. I like taking the 5 whys approach to get to a root trigger word or two.
Building discipline and work ethic are the two master skills that underlie any goal I'll find or want to undertake, so it's what I try to optimize on.
So, instead of wanting some eureka moment, I build a practice of improving my discipline and work ethic a little every day. I am part of a weekly group where we set goals and check in with each other, creating obligations around the things I want to be doing for others to force me to move.
The above could be a blog post in some way as I've been self employed for over a decade and have had to work on these routines to be my own best support.
Thoughts and input most welcome :)
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#8For me, a big change was to stop to beat myself so much about my failure to work on the things I wanted to do. Now, I'm much more leisury about my projects. I have very unproductive periods, and very productive periods, I goes in cycles. It's normal.
The only thing is to persist. As Confucius said "It does not matter how slow you go, as long as you do not stop."
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#9For me, the motivation comes by having other people use and respond to the software I create. This means getting out of my developer bubble and doing some marketing. When people are engaging with your creations in a positive way, it's hard to not be motivated. I think this applies to any software product that is written with the intention of having someone else use it, open source or otherwise.
This gives me a short burst of motivation but is don't seem to get around to actual completion of a project and seeing it in use.
Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?
#10I find that my motivation is self sustaining as long as I get started. When I'm feeling demotivated it usually manifests as putting off getting started. "I'll start after I've read Twitter". "I'll just read these articles from Hacker News". "It's almost lunch times, so I'll get started after I've eaten something". And then it's the end of the day, I've done nothing, and I feel really crap about it.
Every time the trick is to just get myself started. Work out a way to reduce the commitment in getting started. Never tell yourself you'll settle down to 10 hours straight work after you read that article, send this tweet, or reply to that email. Instead break down your todo list into tiny chunks, and just do the first thing. Or use something like Pomodoro and just sit down to do 25 minutes work.