Starting small seems to be really helpful as far as I've been able to see in the comments. I will keep that to heart, and I'll commit to making a super small project this very weekend. Thank you, and best of luck for your upcoming game!
I had never thought of it that way. Project coherency looks like a great metric/mission to keep in mind as I go about a project. Am I doing this to learn, or am I dong this to do X? Thank you.
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.
