I wish G+ had more descriptive links, like http://plus.google.com/Daniel_Meade/Always_a_starter_never_a...
Google doesn't need to care about SEO ;)
Always a starter, never a finisher.
51–60 of 99 posts
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#52You need a partner or an advisor. Someone else who you feel you can't give up on. At least that's what has worked for me.
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#53My father is an engineer, and he always taught me that there's no such thing as a good job half completed. The problem with his perspective is that it is uni-dimensional, and with good reason: if you half-build a bridge, people are going to be sad. He's an engineer and he's got to finish the bridge. However, my father didn't decide that a bridge was required, nor did he choose the ideal location for the bridge based…
> Chances are, if you got bored it wasn't going to turn out well anyhow. Listen to what your subconscious is trying to tell you. I agree with most of this post, but I disagree with this sentence. It's very, very easy to trick yourself into believing that a great idea that you're working on is not actually interesting. The problem is that you've been working with the idea so much that you no longer are seeing the thin…
I accept that I should have arrived at a less-lazy way of describing the feeling I get when I am able to detach myself from a pet-favourite idea long enough to see its flaws.
It's been my repeated experience that most people are unable to tell the difference between a good idea and a total dud. Certainly feedback helps, but I would also suggest that most people are trained from birth to only say things that they believe you want to hear. The people you know are almost unable to give unbiased feedback, and they can't help it. They don't want to disappoint you.
Learning how to effectively find flaws in your own idea (boredom is an ineffective but common approach) is an incredibly valuable skill. A bad idea well-executed is still bad.
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#54My father is an engineer, and he always taught me that there's no such thing as a good job half completed. The problem with his perspective is that it is uni-dimensional, and with good reason: if you half-build a bridge, people are going to be sad. He's an engineer and he's got to finish the bridge. However, my father didn't decide that a bridge was required, nor did he choose the ideal location for the bridge based…
> What I learned when I came of age was that I am a Starter. The more accurate way to put this is "I am not a Finisher". The argument here is that starting and finishing are two equally valuable skills that are somehow equivalent. A "Starter" is a fairweather friend. It's easy to start things. Most people like starting things. Note this is different from networking and so forth, which is really a separate skill altog…
You're welcome to your opinion, but I respectfully disagree. Frankly, I wouldn't be employed if anything you said was absolutely true.
My firm is hired to implement concepts as working products. I first help the clients decide whether their idea has legs and help them refine the vision. My team builds out v1 over a period of months, and then we generally hand off to an internal team or another firm that will provide ongoing support. We maintain a pool of excellent resources that excel in maintenance projects but don't have the capacity or interest to be architects.
http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Starter+the+Architect+the+Deb... was pointed out to me as another recent and good article on the same subject.
Finally, I assure you that successful Starters are excellent networkers and communicators. They have to be, or else the project will never leave the gates.
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#55If you never finish you are never taught the gut wrenching lesson that the last 10% really is 90% of the work. Even for an MVP.
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#56It's somehow interesting to me how often this comes up on HN. It's also a problem I tend to have. But if you had asked me 10 years ago based on what I'd casually heard outside of tech, it was much more common for me to encounter and worry about the exact opposite failure case in creative projects: not the person who has 30 half-finished novels, but the person who's spent 30 years writing their Masterpiece Novel that…
I think the person with 30 unfinished books and the person spending 30 years on their novel are really just flavors of the same thing - inability to finish a job. They're both re-starting and revising over and over again. I would guess that if the 30-year novel ever gets completed, it probably bears little resemblance to the original draft. There's probably various reasons that could apply to either case - perfectionism, lack of attention span, unable to commit on decisions, self doubt, etc.
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think you could provide some links or references? When I read your comment, I immediately thing of overdiagnosing condition these days. I only ask because I Think a lot of people in my generation (I guess that's Gen Y?) jump to the "ADHD" or genuinely think they have something wrong with them, when they are completely normal.
Having lots of unfinished projects is common with people with ADHD. We tend to get over the initial excitement of starting something new and lose interest. In order to be actually diagnosed with ADHD you would have to be affected in other ways that seriously impact your life, but this is one "trait cluster" that a lot of people with ADHD share. http://add-adhd.lifetips.com/tip/81525/adult-add-adhd/adult-...
Me too. But I gut up and finish anyway.
While it may be true that most people with ADHD don't finish things, it also true that most people who don't finish things don't have any disorder at all. They just don't finish things.
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What I learned when I came of age was that I am a Starter. The more accurate way to put this is "I am not a Finisher". The argument here is that starting and finishing are two equally valuable skills that are somehow equivalent. A "Starter" is a fairweather friend. It's easy to start things. Most people like starting things. Note this is different from networking and so forth, which is really a separate skill altog…
You're welcome to your opinion, but I respectfully disagree. Frankly, I wouldn't be employed if anything you said was absolutely true. My firm is hired to implement concepts as working products. I first help the clients decide whether their idea has legs and help them refine the vision. My team builds out v1 over a period of months, and then we generally hand off to an internal team or another firm that will provide…
I'm not talking about you or your company, but a lot of Starters are excellent bullshitters. They have an idea that is the equivalent of "Lets go to the moon" and leave it to others to build a Saturn V rocket. The latter of course is just an implementation detail.
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#59Just like eating bad food and watching TV, being productive is a habit. Get in the habit and you'll find yourself up early on weekends working on your projects. The way to feed the habit is with success. To experience successes, I have found: - first minimize your goals. The less to do, the faster to succeed. The fastest way to finish a feature is by removing it from the plan. - work on one project, maximum two. Any…
I think this is the opposite of the solution, the problem isnt doesnt sound like motivation to work, as mentioned they are always working on and excited by 'the next big thing', Its certainly something I relate to. The problem is 'feeling productive' and 'being productive' are different things, its very easy to be working weekends and nights on your project, its very hard to realise that the chances are the work you…
I don't consider "working on something I never released" as being productive though. In my original post when I was talking about habitually being productive I meant habitually shipping & following through on projects till completion, not just habitually working on 'a' project without finishing.
Re: Always a starter, never a finisher.
#60My father is an engineer, and he always taught me that there's no such thing as a good job half completed. The problem with his perspective is that it is uni-dimensional, and with good reason: if you half-build a bridge, people are going to be sad. He's an engineer and he's got to finish the bridge. However, my father didn't decide that a bridge was required, nor did he choose the ideal location for the bridge based…
I'm sorry, but you're kidding yourself if you think there's a lot of value in being an "idea man", or if you think that there aren't people who have both great ideas and the ability to see them through to completion.