81–90 of 107 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess that in your life you have to leave some unfinished projects behind to be able to finish others.
The ideal is not starting the projects you won't finish... But I guess nobody gets there.
Just some encouragement here for you good people... You have to do the work. There is no one else that can do it for you. It is entirely up to you; actually, it has only ever been you, because it is you that rolls out of bed early to bring it. No one is going to do that for you. If you want to do it, then you will figure out a way to make it happen. Like some of you, I have a family. That makes things a bit challengi…
Personally I think realizing you need to engage your will and discipline yourself into working hard when you don't want to is the easy part. The really really hard part is actually doing it. How do you find will where there is none? How do you motivate yourself when you feel unmotivated about everything? When you feel stuck in the rat race, stuck in the routine of monotony? How can I restore the drive and motivation…
He responded by saying that he doesn't have more discipline - he just creates environments that decrease his opportunities to fail (ie. get distracted) and increase his likelihood to succeed (ie. finish the work).
The idea is to not trust yourself and not give yourself the opportunity to fail. A concrete example of how I've personally put this to great use in my life is how I made it a habit to go to the gym:
When I was in college, I wanted to go to the gym regularly. Unfortunately I found that when I was in my dorm room and needed to get ready for the gym, I lacked the motivation to get out of a comfortable situation. What I began doing was taking my gym clothes to class and going straight to the gym after class. This required significantly less motivation on my part because I was already walking around campus, sometimes even passing the gym by on the way back to my dorm. The step leading up to that also required very little motivation - putting clothes in your backpack. The result was that I created a sequence of events that each had a small likelihood of failure. 10 years later, going to the gym is my favorite hobby.
Another example related to getting work done came about when I was trying to work on my side projects from home. It never worked. I'd always want to browse the internet, watch tv, play video games, or spend time with my girlfriend. Starting work when my Xbox was in the next room meant summoning a monumental amount of motivation. Instead what I started doing was going to a local coffee shop or coworking space. It doesn't take that much effort to just go to a public space with wifi (and if it does, you can use the advice above). Once there, you have put yourself in an environment where everyone else is working. Aside from noise, there are fewer distractions. In addition, you'll look like an asshole if you're sitting in front of your laptop playing on Reddit for 4 hours while everyone around you is getting shit done.
If you can make a habit of completing those small triggers that lead to bigger outcomes, you'll eventually have gained a much more significant habit.
This one has a reverse interest for most entrepreneurs, how do you get your product past the initial excitement and impending boredom of the customer?
One day a management consultant, Ivy Lee, called on Schwab of the Bethlehem Steel Company. Lee outlined briefly his firm's services, ending with the statement: "With our service, you'll know how to manage better."
The indignant Schwab said, "I'm not managing as well now as I know how. What we need around here is not more "knowing" but more doing, not knowledge but action; if you can give us something to pep us up to do the things we ALREADY KNOW we ought to do, I'll gladly listen to you and pay you anything you ask."
"Fine", said Lee. "I can give you something in twenty minutes that will step up your action and doing at least 50 percent".
"O.K.", said Schwab. "I have just about that much time before I must leave to catch a train. What's your idea?"
Lee pulled a bland 3x5 note sheet out of his pocket, handed it to Schwab and said: "Write on this sheet the six most important tasks you have to do tomorrow". That took about three minutes. "Now", said Lee, "number them in the order of their importance". Five more minutes passed. "Now", said Lee, "put this sheet in you pocket and the first thing tomorrow morning look at item one and start working on it. Pull the sheet out of your pocket every 15 or 20 minutes and look at item one until it is finished. Then tackle item two in the same way, then item three. Do this until quitting time. Don't be concerned if you only finished two or three, or even if you only finish one item. You'll be working on the important ones. The others can wait. If you can't finish them all by this method, you couldn't with any other method either, and without some system you'd probably not even decide which are most important".
"Spend the last five minutes of every working day making out a 'must' list for the next day's tasks. After you've convinced yourself of the worth of this system have your men try it. Try it out as long as you wish and then send me a check for what YOU think it's worth".
The whole interview lasted about twenty-five minutes. In two weeks Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000 - a thousand dollars a minute. He added a note saying the lesson was the most profitable from a money standpoint he had every learned. Did it work? In five years it turned the unknown Bethlehem Steel Company into the biggest independent steel producer in the world; made Schwab a hundred million dollar fortune, and the best known steel man alive at that time.
It was the same for me for several ideas/projects that i started with. Then i realised what was the reason makes me not touching the project after a while... The first steps are always known and can be done by almost everyone. - Buy the domain - Construct the idea - Even, start coding the project And here comes the reasons why you slowly starting not to touch the project anymore; - You realise that you are not sure h…
- Deploying? I do integrations and devops-like stuff at work, and online discussions tend to overblow this topic given this probably matters among the least. The "correct" way is the fastest that will get the job done now so you can keep your momentum going. Until you go full hog hot-deploying to keep your uptime high, expect to destroy everything eventually, who cares if it's sloppy if it went into the trash? Just git receive hooks are good enough for toy projects like O(n^3) algorithms are probably fine for starting some random webapp.
-Business models are in abundant supply out given the number of times "ideas people" that "just need someone to make an app/site of it" have approached me. Unless you're undertaking significant costs or are on the edge of financial ruin, you shouldn't worry though given starting a tech company is the cheapest it's ever been and only getting cheaper (per Mark Cuban). However, you may want to do some quick market research so you don't waste too much time building something that nobody wants - your time is actually going up in cost at a rate faster than Moore's Law gives you savings! On the other hand, don't be like me and think that focus groups and all the stuff that big companies do for thousands typically for a waste of money applies for you. It seems common sense but we all do dumb things in hindsight and it can be hard to step outside your box. People with good prioritization skills do less dumb things wrt execution, that much I can assure you.
- Taxes are pretty simple for tiny companies in the US (this IS still a cheap place to run a business comparatively), you can probably hire an accountant to do it for a couple hundred bucks without paying a lawyer for even more. Everyone gets moved to Delaware or something later, just get that done hastily to check it off. It's the FUNDING that will make your head spin, taxes are trivial in comparison. Beyond that it's all good problems to have from everything I've read.
For me, I honestly think the hardest part is coming up with a coding project that keeps me motivated long enough without encountering some real hard blocks that just can't scale even though I know they're stupid easy for others. I get a small aneurysm having to deal with frontend design decisions & execution as a systems & backend stack guy primarily. Font choices, picking color palettes for an audience, ... am I making a business or planning my wedding again?
I've only shipped maybe a couple personal projects for the public to see though, so perhaps I'm full of crap and I wasted everyone's time. But if anything, I know how my own habits lead to ineffective output even with what seems like a lot of effort, so I think by telling people the opposite of what I do, it would give better results for others than saying what I actually do.
For instance, I made a podcast downloader as a Haskell learning project. I haven't goften around to making it delete old files. Meh. The interface is good, it is reliable and fast. I'll just clean it out manually now and then. Or maybe get to it later if I feel like it. A few years ago this might have been hanging over my head as a failure.
Just some encouragement here for you good people... You have to do the work. There is no one else that can do it for you. It is entirely up to you; actually, it has only ever been you, because it is you that rolls out of bed early to bring it. No one is going to do that for you. If you want to do it, then you will figure out a way to make it happen. Like some of you, I have a family. That makes things a bit challengi…
One can't overestimate this advice. Regarding willpower: What I find very useful to remember is that willpower is something we all can and have to develop. Also, it's important to understand that willpower is a limited resource. Similar to training your body it has a lot to do with energy management - strain and rest. One of the richest advices I've found is [1]. I particularly like the 4 steps of development:
1. Avoid things that are not useful
2. Overcome in case they are apparent
3. Develop things that are useful
4. Maintain them
[1] http://swamij.com/podcast.htm see Developing Determination for Enlightenment
Took me 10 years to learn how to do that. Good Luck!
I've started to throw all my embarrasing, childish project onto github. If someone files a comment regarding how bad something is - great, then I have something concrete to fix.
And having a lot of projects open means there is always something easy to fix to keep the streak going. Suddenly projects move forward, albeit one small commit at a time.
This way I have actually completed more projects in years.