Thank you. It does appear that motivation gets you going in the short term, but it's discipline that gets you going in the long term. I need to seriously cultivate an appreciation and a skill for discipline, so that I can keep going even when the initial rush wears out.
Guilt definitely plays a part. Whenever I'm not 'working' on the next great thing, I do feel like I should. I should just take it easy for a while and really re-evaluate what I want to do and what I don't. Thank you!
That's exactly it -- if you stick to some stuff, at least there is a chance, however small, that you'll accomplish or finish something. If you don't, that chance is reduced to 0.
The initial rush gives tons of dopamine, I need to find a way to persist even after the dopamine has worn off. Continuing a project has its own benefits and points of pleasure, I just need to start gaining an appreciation for those benefits and start getting pleasure from sticking to things. Thank you for the comment, I loved your story and appreciate you sharing it with me.
Decoupling the 'satisfaction' from the project itself is something I need to learn. I need to be able to stick to things even beyond 'the horizon,' after they stopped providing the dopamine hit. This is the main hurdle. Thank you for your comment, I'll keep it to heart.
Committing to a daily/weekly absolute minimum looks really helpful. Back in June I committed to writing a blog post a week and somehow, I managed to stick with it even though sometimes the posts ended up being written in a rush two hours before publication.
I should be taking advantage of this system more. Thank you.
I find that the smaller the minimum commitment, the more likely I am to stick to it. It's much easier to convince myself to do a 5-minute task than a longer one.
Once that's done, I may gain some momentum and keep working, or I may not, but it's up to me, and the knowledge that I can always step back helps a lot.
First of all I love Marginalia, thanks for finishing _that_ project. :)
Project scope seems to be key. I often get into things with 'lofty' goals but I should be more realistic about what I want to get from them. That requires a bit of thinking and self-reflection which, I think, I might be skipping.
Acknowledging that not everything is glamorous is also another big part of it. When you just start something it's all new and shiny, but the bulk of the work is the unglamorous oiling of the gears and small improvements. I should internalize this fact.
> It is absolutely fine to be a generalist.
Thank you for stating that. It's rare (at least in my circles) to see generalists in startups so it's refreshing to see this.
> First of all I love Marginalia, thanks for finishing _that_ project. :)
> Project scope seems to be key. I often get into things with 'lofty' goals but I should be more realistic about what I want to get from them. That requires a bit of thinking and self-reflection which, I think, I might be skipping.
Dunno, I think lofty goals are fine, but you need a clear idea why you want to accomplish them.
Like if the reason you're learning some technology is because you want to learn it, and you find midway through that you don't want to learn it, then one of you must be wrong. Either you want to or you don't. It's fine to change your mind, you should be upfront about yourself about that. If it turns out you don't want to learn the thing, then you're wasting your time pushing yourself.
It's also good to have some clue how to get there.
When I built my search engine, I started by making a fairly simple prototype that consisted of a few components that each took a few weeks to get working. Having that made iterating on the design much easier. There's just no way I'd gotten where I am now if I didn't start where I did.
> Acknowledging that not everything is glamorous is also another big part of it. When you just start something it's all new and shiny, but the bulk of the work is the unglamorous oiling of the gears and small improvements. I should internalize this fact.
A lot of it may also be ensuring that you are doing the right things. I sometimes fall into the trap of just sort of tweaking things and not really making much of a difference.
I've found it helpful to get some distance away from a project and to just think about it for a while instead of forcing myself to work directly at it every day. I often come back with a huge amount of ideas that I no doubt would have never come up with if I was closer to the project.
Your comment hits a nerve. I've been wondering about how to distinguish between something I am genuinely interested in, and something I think I should be interested in. I feel sometimes things get lost in a fog and I can't tell them apart.
Perhaps the real question is not so much how I can stick to things, but what I am _actually_ interested in. Thank you.
There definitely seems to be a sweet spot where projects are challenging enough to be engaging yet familiar enough that you don't get frustrated. Finding that window looks to be key.
It's also a great idea to put a deadline for yourself, say, having a small MVP working within a month, and then that's that. Having something 'accomplished' in that timeframe could be neat, as in, it would likely spur me to keep developing it once I see it working. Thank you.
I have definitely considered ADHD, and while correlation != causation, the correlation is of note nonetheless.
> I almost always stick to my projects because they're almost always motivated by a need rather than a fad.
When looking back at my life I now see this pattern as well. The things you end up sticking to are the ones you 'need.' This is something worth taking a look at. Perhaps I should put myself in a position where I would 'need' to complete something, which then would spur me to get ore things done.
And definitely agree on keeping things small and on using the tools you know. These things sound 'obvious' but the temptation to use the latest fad is very strong. Thank you!
My wife and I have ADHD, and your description sounds exactly like our lives. Dive incredibly deep into a new thing because it's new and exciting, immerse yourself for a while, and then be completely unable, even if you really want to, to go back to it.
I've had more than a few projects which I did because I thought they would be interesting, but never did anything with; I learned XPath for parsing out character data from the FFXIV Lodestone: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/1569460/
Wrote a giant Python class to handle it all, parsed out all the data you could want, even to the point of almost being late for a social event because I wanted to finish the part I was doing (because I knew I'd completely forget). Then saved it and completely forgot about it for eight years until today.
In my case, I try to look at learning a little about a lot as one of my best resources; I can process information really quickly and learn a lot, build proof of concepts, etc., and while I might never "finish" a project in an absolute sense, if my goal is to learn just enough to be useful (use it in another project, help someone else with a problem, give advice, etc.) then it's a win.
Maybe it's just time to reframe your idea of "success" with regards to processes.
At this point, at least in my career, the ability to learn new things is my ability and 'selling' point. While I do understand this has great benefits and that there's few people like this, one can't help but wonder what being a specialist would bring. I should perhaps be less harsh on myself and reframe what I've done so far as being 'succesful'... with processes. Thank you!
There are lots of people who can specialize though; being the person who can bridge specializations (or determine what specialization even applies) is incredibly valuable. It's hard to reconcile that with our society's typical examples of success, but it's still valuable!
