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Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
151–160 of 171 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#152When your project is finished, the dream is dead and the reality is born. The death of a dream is like the death of a friend. It's probably been with you for a long time -- longer even than the length of the project. A dream is the manifestation of what's possible. When it is over, the possible diminishes very quickly and you are left with what actually is. Will people respond well to your project -- in the dream sta…
> the dream is dead and the reality is born
I could not say this better myself. "The Dream Is Dead, Long Live The Reality". So very true upon many things.
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#153I can only speak for myself but I consider myself to be some sort of pro academic. I should maybe consider a career at a university. Because one of my biggest flaws is that I love starting projects and following them through until I've learned everything new I can squeeze out of them. Then just before the finish line when I feel that I have a good understanding of the project my energy and willpower falters and my fo…
You're not the only one, I too enjoy the learning process much more then finishing the project. It seems I'm always learning new skills in preparation for something greater. Maybe its just a lie I tell myself in order to prevent disappointment...
There is nothing greater. I believe we're just chasing the thrill of learning new things.
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't get me wrong, if you are to measure success by the money you raise, then I completely agree with you. I meant thinking of an app as a mean of expression rather than a cow to squeeze money from. If you want to make something more in the arts department, getting people to tell you what they think early on might be a horrible and non constructive idea.
I don't care whether you are writing it for money, open source, or simply to make the world a better place. If the purpose of your work involves other people appreciating it, you won't know what they will and will not appreciate it until you put it in front of other people and get feedback about it.
I think this is a discussion about building stuff.
When the idea is just taking form I think getting too many people involved is a mistake. All you need is 2/3 people really invested in the idea. For example: unix
When the idea is near completion I think it's really good to get all the feedback you can.
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being in the same stage as the OP, I highly second this comment. I have been working on something for last 19 months. It is nearly complete, but still finding it difficult to wrap up somehow. Your comment has given me some insight and some closure. Thanks a lot !
Exactly the same here. Almost two years, it's near completion and more than what I imagined at first, but that last mile, damn it's hard. I constantly find another thing to add or focus on to avoid that final step. I hope you'll find the strengh to do so :)
And you too ! :)
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#156For me I feel like as you near completion it becomes harder to make complex changes quickly so each time you sit down to make an epic commit you are not able to make as much impact when compared to the start of a project.
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#157When your project is finished, the dream is dead and the reality is born. The death of a dream is like the death of a friend. It's probably been with you for a long time -- longer even than the length of the project. A dream is the manifestation of what's possible. When it is over, the possible diminishes very quickly and you are left with what actually is. Will people respond well to your project -- in the dream sta…
I've been back here to re-read this comment 10+ times today, it's really resonated with me.
Thank you.
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#158When your project is finished, the dream is dead and the reality is born. The death of a dream is like the death of a friend. It's probably been with you for a long time -- longer even than the length of the project. A dream is the manifestation of what's possible. When it is over, the possible diminishes very quickly and you are left with what actually is. Will people respond well to your project -- in the dream sta…
This is exactly it. Tens of my personal projects have died in this stage. It was always much easier to move on to the next dream. There is always the next big problem that could use a solution. Why not build when it is what we do best? Rinse, repeat. I took a break from side projects for several years but recently got back to it and couple weeks back finished building. It is the same story all over again. Same feelin…
My solution for this was not to "look forward to the next big project", as my thinking was, but instead I looked back on my life, what were some of my best memories related to work. (there are online courses to illicit this answer, I went through Simon Sineks 'Start With Why', though you might know it anyway).
So, I picked my best memories, and they were animation related. I knew that when it came to the 'switch horses' temptation, I would be able to say, "every project gets to this stage, so why would I switch to my 2nd favorite thing, because surely that would be even harder at this phase. Sure this phase is hard, but doing my favorite thing means this is the easiest version of this phase".
It's kept me going.
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#159One cautionary note: Beware pushing/powering through incipient burnout, rather than addressing it. "Emotional debt" can be hard to pay off. I've had valuable projects that I was very reluctant to touch again, even years later.
This is a good call. And letting frustration roll off your back. If I let frustration get to me, I would have quit. If I couldn't accept 'little progress', (when the alternative was no progress), then I wouldn't have made little progress daily, and gotten to the point of almost done. This is something I've heard (perhaps mostly anecdotal), where people shift between neglect and perfectionism. Allowing moderate progress (where you're not meeting your standards for progress 100%, but you are moving forward), is actually difficult to accept, but it's usually a pretty good coarse. It's hard to be the turtle.
Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?
#160I am in the same boat right now - a project is 90% complete but I have no motivation to do the last 10%. I blame laziness, but really it boils down to a few things: 1. The enjoyment of building - I quite enjoyed building this project, and once it's "done" that joy ends. 2. The fear of failure - what if it's a flop after I publish? 3. The hatred of sales - I'm a programmer, I don't want to deal with selling the produc…
Something that is kind of helping me is this: ( I apply it to cleaning my house too )
I can't force myself to work on the project I say to myself, "You don't have to work on the project, but you can't do anything else. You can either sit here and do nothing, or work on the project"
For some reason this works for me. My inner self is so fed up with being told what to do, it doesn't work, it rebels, but if I limit it, and let it drive forward, it tends to work a bit better.
There also might be a factor with eliminating all distractions, setting the rule of "you can't do anything else".
As for #3, I have the same, and I did a project I truly believed in; I truly believe if more people did more animation, they'd be happier. So, it's not really selling, it's just telling people how I actually feel about animation.
#2 I accept the possibility. If it flops, well, I will have to do some actions to change that. Maybe I change the product, maybe I start calling people on the phone. A flop is a place, not a destination, I can move away from a flop, without failing, taking the product with me.