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How I stay motivated working on my long-term project

durmonski.com

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

#11

Post by keenmaster »

nonbirithm wrote: post #10

> Ask any successful person. Ask any experienced person. They’ll all tell you the same thing – It takes time to create something valuable. Something worth doing. Over time I've ended up not really understanding this advice, but only because of something I accomplished in the past. One day I just felt like writing something. I hadn't written since elementary school and had never published a piece of writing online bef…

I have a similar sentiment and anecdote. I'm fully aware that the OP is more about long term projects, but sometimes long term projects can be helped by a modular approach - including starting with a singular high energy event at the beginning to keep you motivated or get validation.

Anecdote: A few months ago I was speaking with a friend and I mentioned the prospect of writing a certain article for publication in a newspaper (at least a local one), but I quickly dismissed the idea. I thought "what are the chances?" I actually looked up the chances of getting published in a top newspaper, and, according to Quora, they were extremely slim.

My friend pushed me to go ahead with it anyway. I spent the next 4 hours producing and editing the first draft. My friend and a random guy sitting next to me at Starbucks helped revise it. I submitted the article to one of the top newspapers in the country/world and got published a couple weeks later.

I literally never wrote a blog or article before that, and two weeks later tens of thousands of people were reading it and it was shared in elite circles. I sent the link to random Starbucks dude to show that his 10 minutes talking to a stranger resulted in more words on a national newspaper. He got a kick out of it.

Though writing is not my profession, I would now feel more confident pursuing a long term writing project like authoring a book in my free time. This goes back to the modularity I mentioned above. This story could easily have been about a small side project that got traction on GitHub.

There is a paucity of action. Just do it. I'm glad my friend told me that.

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

#12

Post by wisemanwillhear »

> But there is something else entirely that’s keeping you inside Facebook and Twitter like a crackhead inside a drugstore – immediate feedback. Sadly, this same thing, is also the reason you abandon your long-term projects.

Perhaps it's just my disposition, but I find that new ideas are more interesting than old ideas, even when I get quick "feedback". The longer a project takes the older and less exciting my original ideas get and the more I come up with new, exciting ideas.

Building self discipline / temperance + accountability have helped me a lot.

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

#13

Post by justaguyhere »

nonbirithm wrote: post #10

> Ask any successful person. Ask any experienced person. They’ll all tell you the same thing – It takes time to create something valuable. Something worth doing. Over time I've ended up not really understanding this advice, but only because of something I accomplished in the past. One day I just felt like writing something. I hadn't written since elementary school and had never published a piece of writing online bef…

There is a whole cottage industry on giving advice, coaching etc (not talking about this article, just in general). Maybe most of the advice is well intentioned. But everyone's situation, skills, motivations, drive etc are different. What works for one person may not work for another.

We can take general advice from successful people, I guess (especially those who has had recent success). But more than that, it is on the individual to tailor what he/she learned according to their needs.

After listening to whole bunch of people giving advice and trying many of them, I haven't found much that can be applied as is.

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

#14

Post by kurome »

>When I lack immediate feedback, I begin to doubt myself/my abilities.

He believes being conditioned by social media led him to that point, more specifically immediate-satisfaction instant-result culture.

That is not entirely true in my experience. Feedback is supposed to determine strategy, not your self worth as a person. He has been programmed, by the instant result culture or whatever, into emotionally charged reactions, not an objective response.

I have been working out and I hit a plateau, I should stop this is fruitless > I hit a plateau, I need to try a new workout routine. Not “I will workout for 3 years until I make any judgement.”

I have been blogging for months and nobody cares, I should stop > I have been blogging for months without any results, my current course of action needs adjustment. Not “I will blog for 3 years regardless.”

Reacting - Old habits/conditioning make you react to a situation

Responding - Taking in the situation and moving forward with calculated action.

The 3 year rule replaces his current reaction with another one, when he should be working on responding to situations instead. It takes you further, but will not take you further than if you were to correct that faulty outlook altogether.

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

#15

Post by panlana »

kurome wrote: post #14

>When I lack immediate feedback, I begin to doubt myself/my abilities. He believes being conditioned by social media led him to that point, more specifically immediate-satisfaction instant-result culture. That is not entirely true in my experience. Feedback is supposed to determine strategy, not your self worth as a person. He has been programmed, by the instant result culture or whatever, into emotionally charged re…

That's a helpful way to frame it.

Am I responding or reacting?

Thanks!

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

#16

Post by bobbydreamer »

I disagree with you on certain things.

I read you blog on "Lack of Feedback: The Main Reason You Quit".

Only certain things need feedback, not all things. If you are building an app which you want to sell in that case it need not have all features, only essentials first, see if it works and extend it.

Blogs, articles, posts or even sometimes app, if you ask for feedback, when you get it, you might start to work on the feedback rather than completing the things you planned, some feedbacks can be negative, it can get under your skin and can be depressing or uninspiring. So sometimes to do a lot, don't put that comment box on every post, just have a common feedback or put your email somewhere in "aboutme".

Lack of feedback is sometimes good.

Commitment, Say no and adjust doesn't match up.

I am doing a side project for 3 years, it's a bit of analysis work and a web project. No word to anyone on that subject. To get more time to work on my project, I moved closer to my office to save time on travelling but rents bit high, not changing my work even if other offers are good, why ? Fine with work life balance at current work, which I might not get in another company ( previous experience ). I am a moviebuff, stopped watching so many movies and TV series, now I just read spoilers and learn oh that's the story. I know movies will be available online now always, I can watch it anytime I want later.

I sort of believe, the concepts, the ideas which you get in the head, if you have time you should work on them or should put efforts actually, sometimes, till you action that idea another one might not come or that idea could be trigger for something else(like a seed).

Ads are there to get more people to visit, if you are product based.

www.bobbydreamer.com

Is my site, consistently i get 41 users per month(guessing those are all bots).

I just pretend, my site is like a ninja, no one knows it exists but it does.

Persistence is the key.

There are lot of people who do 100 days of coding challenge like 100 posts, Today I Learned, I cannot definitely keep up with them. That's fine. I just know, I have to do atleast one thing in my side project per day. On a very tiresome workday, I will just update comments.

Keep reading your to-do list and check things off. Write things in paper rather than a app. Later one day, your scribbles will look funny.

Keep pushing yourself.

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

#17

Post by conductr »

benrbray wrote: post #2

I'm not sure I agree with this advice in its current form, since the "adjust" phase of the three-year rule is arguably the most important. My current self would be unrecognizable to myself three years ago. I'm still learning how to be productive long-term. I started gaining a lot of momentum when I shifted my thinking from short-term impulsiveness: Wow, I just discovered X! I will read everything there is to know abo…

That’s a hurdle everyone crosses and usually doesn’t go backwards. It sounds like it just happens to be less than 3 years in your rear view.

I don’t know anything about you. But I know being young and having disposable time to dive into everything is a common trap. Using myself as an example, I got married, had a kid, work a lot, and still try to have a bit of a social life. This means I scrutinize heavily how my time is utilized on side projects. I pretty much know when I can build something. Or know i could fill necessary gaps. So I skip that and go straight to “then what?” Is it for hobby? Can I sell this? Do I want to find someone who can? Am I wanting to spend years focused on this? The fact is, I have a lot of ideas that are just-for-fun projects that I would have dived right into in my younger days. Now I rarely do that. I occasionally have an idea that I’ll push forward. I read a lot and like to learn without doing if you will. I also assemble teams to do the labor intensive parts and act as a project manager when I want to build something these days. I find it just as enjoyable and usually learn a lot along the way.

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

#18

Post by hinkley »

kurome wrote: post #14

>When I lack immediate feedback, I begin to doubt myself/my abilities. He believes being conditioned by social media led him to that point, more specifically immediate-satisfaction instant-result culture. That is not entirely true in my experience. Feedback is supposed to determine strategy, not your self worth as a person. He has been programmed, by the instant result culture or whatever, into emotionally charged re…

I think there's some overlap with fame culture here too.

I'm a nobody and I'm sad. If everyone knew me I'd be happy.

A finger closes on the monkey's paw; You're famous now, for getting your drunk ass taken down in a restaurant waiting area. Now everybody hates you, and they recognize you while you're grocery shopping.

I think the reason why a big fraction of success stories comes from people who built something for themselves first is not just that they have a subject matter expert, or a captive audience (which doesn't hurt!). It's that they know the work is important, even if nobody else knows.

I have a project I used to work on where I got wedged on a rapidly shifting API for a dependency. I had grand plans for solving a problem for a niche that is one of my hobbies. Part of getting back into it has been trying to figure out how to be more... selfish. What parts of it would help me, as a tool? Not the bits that would improve my resume (turns out that doesn't motivate me very well), but me personally. Then maybe my friends. Then if I'm still going, the groups that were my original target.

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

#19

Post by nicbou »

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 a month, tops. If you don't enjoy the process after a month and the goal is 3 years away, you won't get there.

From my experience, I stick to doing things because of the rewards along the way. After a month of playing an instrument, learning a language or trying a hobby, I will likely produce something that makes me want to keep going. It won't take 3 years.

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

#20

Post by geuis »

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…

Exactly my feelings in response to scanning through the text. I was honestly expecting a list of ingredients and cooking instructions to appear towards the end.
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