Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 180 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#51

Post by croo »

davelnewton wrote: post #3

If it's necessary then motivation is irrelevant. You don't have to be motivated, you have to work. Your problem isn't motivation, it's not understanding that not all work is, or needs to be, pleasant, or intrinsically enjoyable. Look at what your goal is: if the result isn't motivating, then the unpleasant work isn't the issue, rather your goal.

Exactly. There is no work with only enjoyable and fun parts. It's called work after all. I embrace these parts of a project by remembering that I will learn the most not by having fun but by wading through shit that leaves marks.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#52

Post by SamWhited »

jenscow wrote: post #12

Yes, been there. A few times. Payment processors are awful to work with... and it's sometimes tricky to test with. They really do make you question your desire to remain on this planet, let alone continue to work on it! I've found that more documentation they provide just adds to the confusion and contradictions. Sometimes contacting support helps... more often than not, they'll provide you with a key ingredient that…

I should try contacting support; thanks. Some of the weird things I've run into are so poorly thought out that I can't believe they'd actually be an intentional part of their product. I've talked to some developers on their IRC channel, but typically (and this is something I strive as hard as possible not to do on my own projects), they were just so used to it that they couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't know how parts of the system worked even if it wasn't documented.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#53

Post by Arqu »

Seems like this is a common theme amongst people working on side projects. My 5c is that you do two things to get to release: 1) Cut down to all but the essential, think what really means Minimum, Viable and Product 2) Have a task board - its a good motivation to watch how you burn down through it 3) Keep your eye on the higher goal - the boring or hard parts are a means to an end here

As far as personal experience - took me 6 years to launch with the bulk happening in 6 months where I've decided I WILL LAUNCH FFS. Billing is a PITA and am actually dealing with it at this exact moment. It's crap, always will be, but my motivation is that this is what will aid making money which will keep the project alive, so yeah, means to an end. Lastly, I will launch if it kills me - I'm still kicking but have probably spent way to much time and nerves on some stuff.

I guess take it as a challenge and look at it like this: Only the ones that go through it all get to the end, all others just abandon it and fail. Be the one that sees it through.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#54

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Intrinsic motivation is really hard - but getting positive feedback from your peers rocks - so just share it - I threw a link to a github repo out over the weekend just because, and ended up on the HN front page and nearly 400 stars. That simple act meant I now have a new side project near the top of my list that I was not expecting and you know what - it feels really nice - people liked it enough to say nice things and comment.

Just throw it out there and see what happens - you don't even need the billing. Just give us all a guest pass for a month - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#56

Post by stickfigure »

Launch without billing. You can implement that later. "Free while beta! Early adopters will get a special discount!"

Make sure you are breaking up work into small releasable steps. You should get the "oooh ahh" feeling of tangible accomplishment at least a couple times a week.

Get users as quickly as possible. As soon as you have one real user, it suddenly feels like you're participating in the real world instead of working in a hole. Announce changes to your users; positive feedback from them is emotionally buoying, negative feedback is an opportunity to fix what you just broke.

Create a facebook group/mailing list/forum/whatever for your early adopters. The community will help motivate you.

Spend time refactoring. Whether or not the investment will pay back with more productivity is irrelevant; clean code improves your quality of life and makes you look forward to work and that alone makes it worthwhile.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#57

Post by sephoric »

tjkrusinski wrote: post #31

One day, you will be dead. Each year that passes after your death, fewer and fewer people will remember who you were, what you did or what your face looked like. Eventually, you'll be completely forgotten. Who cares if that side project you put out sucked or not. Might as well put it out there and see what people think. There's a good chance too that the project won't even be remembered even by the time you die. The…

Along these lines, I always try to be purpose driven: I make software because I'm good at it and because it makes me money. I need that money to buy food and clothing for me and my wife and our kids and to pay for having a roof over our heads. If I were better at something else, or not good enough at software, I would use that skill to accomplish the same task for the same reason. Usually it is enjoyable and rewarding to solve problems using software. But it can often be stressful and difficult. That's part of any job though, they can all be stressful and difficult. Going to a different career path will not relieve you from stresses and difficulties, it will only change what they are. So instead, if you enjoy writing software and are good at it, just learn how to overcome these difficulties and stresses in a good and healthy way, and keep remembering that at the end of the day, you're probably doing it for a higher goal.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#59

Post by maxxxxx »

When I read "Go SDK" I wonder if there are better SDKs in other languages from this provider. I often find that although they advertise having 10 different SDKs in reality only one or two actually work while others are just a badly maintained afterthought. Happens a lot to us .NET users. I find it better to write the code parts that deal with the SDK in one of the premier languages and then integrate this into my code.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project?

#60

Post by billconan »

I'm not a persistent person and have generated tons of half baked prototypes. But throughout the years, I found myself improved in terms of side-project management, from not able to launch anything, to launch but abandon something, and to actively maintain a project and feel rewarding. I feel that I'm in a state that working on side-project has become my habit, instead of an impulsive spree. Every night, I spend 2 hours on it, otherwise, I have no better way to kill my time anyways.

What I learned is that focusing on short term goals, is better than thinking or designing for the far future. I use gitlab, and its issue board helps me organize the tasks. When I don't feel like working, like when I'm tired from work, I still spend time looking at the task board. I reorder the tasks based on their impacts and based on their difficulty. So that I can interleave the hard and the easy ones, and make sure I can always finish some tasks within 2 hours each day.

Post reply on HN