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Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

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Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#121

Post by amflare »

high_derivative wrote: post #113
t34543 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I refuse to do stand ups

I found the best response to standups in a prior job was to randomise a delay about ongoing work. Simply talk about what you did 2-5 days ago (depending on urgency of things). This obfuscates your exact productivity and takes away organisational power from micro-managing bosses. Whenever a manager comes in or there is a meeting to check on your progress, you can slice of something from your buffer to present. For eve…

How do you prevent commit timestamps or completed tickets from giving you away?

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#122

Post by baxtr »

But then again: dreaming about startups will help you avoid pursuing a crazy career with no guarantee that it will work out. I often dream about startups that I could do and vividly imagine how successful they’d be. It feels really good. Then I stop and tell myself that I’ll never do it

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#123

Post by agota »

mrcoder111 wrote: post #70

I really hate this article. Pretty much everything I've ever accomplished in my life is because I speak it into existence and hold myself accountable. But then again, if you're the type of person who makes things happen, you don't rely on crappy psychology studies to tell you how to live your life.

I think most people struggle with holding themselves accountable.

You are fortunate if you are an outlier in that regard.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#124

Post by nefitty »

svantana wrote: post #82
wccrawford wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have definitely had my battles with people who want to poke holes in my plans, rather than support me. They think they're helping me, but they aren't. They're just killing my enthusiasm. If I'd been left to try, I'd have worked hard at it, had an experienced, learned some things, and maybe even accomplished it. Instead, they did their best to stop me. I now snap at people who do this to me. I no longer let them thr…

That's too bad. I invite criticism of my projects, because I want to make sure I'm not fooling myself. Other people's perspective can shine new light on a problem and force you to reconsider the idea, hopefully leading to improved design.

This makes sense to keep in mind. It seems like there's a danger that some personalities will pursue a goal single-mindedly if there are absolutely no critical obstacles in their way. Not to beat a dead horse, but the Fyre Fest incident comes to mind. If the leads on that project had encountered more "No" would they have stopped, or at least scaled back, to something more achievable? This presumes positive intent in that case, though, which I'm not too sure of there.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#125

Post by phkahler »

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #101
mindgam3 wrote: post #89

This very much depends on how motivated you are by external validation. For some people, the fear of losing social capital by not following through on a public commitment is motivating enough to accomplish stretch goals. Source: used this technique to overcome my own procrastination trying to launch my first app as a solo founder. It worked, and I went on to raised a million VC to see if I could scale up the vision o…

I announce my projects so people can tell me how stupid I am and it makes me more determined to succeed and show them how they are actually the ones who are stupid. I guess I'm petty like that.

Defiance. Often a negative trait, sometimes a motivator. Learn to control and harness it.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#126

Post by adenverd »

t34543 wrote: post #93
mbarronj wrote: post #37

I call them "Secret Plans". You gotta save up the emotional energy and reward. On so many projects, you get the same neuro-chemical reward by talking about your project plans and how cool the result will be, as you do by making progress. By holding out, and only allowing progress itself to be a reward, and not just the talking, I usually get much further. The project may still die, but then I have something in my han…

This is why I refuse to do stand ups

Engineering manager here. I think a lot of people miss the point of standup, or abuse it to somehow micromanage engineers.

Standup is for the team, not the manager or PM. It serves multiple functions, but the most important is the last bit: "are you blocked by something?". Most of the time, someone else on the team knows how to unblock you. Other times, your manager is better positioned to get you what you need than you are. Most of us don't care when you work, or how much progress you made today, or whatever. Our job is to keep the ball rolling, not manage your time.

The status update portion exists so that your manager doesn't randomize you in the middle of the day asking about that thing you're working on. Not because s/he thinks you're slacking, but because your work ties into a bunch of other work that's going on, and it's the manager's job to coordinate. While you may be more effective working as an information silo, your team and org are hindered by it.

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#127

Post by empressplay »

enobrev wrote: post #58

Does reserving a domain name fall under the category of "Announcing your plans"? If so, my experience absolutely correlates with this. I might as well save my ideas to pocket. At least that's a free way to keep really interesting things I'll never see again.

Ah, yes... domain name addiction. Been there, done that =)

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#128

Post by fhbdukfrh »

alexis_fr wrote: post #111
t34543 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I refuse to do stand ups

Standups to me are just a way to ensure everyone is awake. And able to answer a simple question and make a sentence. I don’t exactly care about the contents, except from time to time when it makes us notice that a colleague is on a wrong track.

They have real value in building team: We are all standing around in a circle; our alignment means something.

They're also one of my easiest ways to include remote workers- they always go first. (the phone is part of the circle)

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#129

Post by fhbdukfrh »

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #101
mindgam3 wrote: post #89

This very much depends on how motivated you are by external validation. For some people, the fear of losing social capital by not following through on a public commitment is motivating enough to accomplish stretch goals. Source: used this technique to overcome my own procrastination trying to launch my first app as a solo founder. It worked, and I went on to raised a million VC to see if I could scale up the vision o…

I announce my projects so people can tell me how stupid I am and it makes me more determined to succeed and show them how they are actually the ones who are stupid. I guess I'm petty like that.

Shouldn't you be doing this as a positive for yourself, instead of for a negative, external motivator?

Re: Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

#130

Post by fhbdukfrh »

mindgam3 wrote: post #106
rubbingalcohol wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I announce my projects so people can tell me how stupid I am and it makes me more determined to succeed and show them how they are actually the ones who are stupid. I guess I'm petty like that.

I feel that. One could argue that all ambitious entrepreneur types are motivated at least partly by a burning desire to prove that the other guy or “the system” is in fact the asshole.

I don't agree. True ambition is very self centered, almost egotistic. The detractors never have as much invested as you and are largely irrelevant. You don't do it because they say you can't, you do it because they don't even exist.
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