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Comment by supersan | Hacker News Reader

My problem is more about bikeshedding than anything else. Every morning I start my work enthusiastically but then obsess over stupid things like the variable names, optimization, too much refactoring, indentation even sometime (like it would be so good to see all these = signs to align.. aaargh) and then just mentally exhaust myself with these trivialities and then it's back to reddit or hn. Worst part is that I'm aware how useless it is to obsess over such things yet I still catch myself doing it way too often these days.

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Personally, this stems from worrying too much about not just making a good choice, but the "perfect" choice. It stems from perfectionism. I truly see many "techie's" and HNers seem to relate to the issues I often feel afflicted with: Perfectionism and Procrastination. My gut says its because many of us grew up being high achievers and quick to pick things up but now we fear being "wrong" or not being perfect. Ugh.

Anyways,, I recently came across How to Be an Imperfectionist: The New Way to Self-Acceptance, Fearless Living, and Freedom from Perfectionism by Steven Guise[1] It's been very helpful in making aware of the challenge I have and how to work on changing how I think about things so that I stop worrying about results and focus more on process (and progress, the results will eventually come).

I've realized I was/am a perfectionist but I didn't really realize how destructive it is. It leads to paralysis analysis, extreme fear of failure and thus "freezing" and procrastination. I've been contemplating doing a write up on these issues and throwing another one in the mix [pornography] but I'm still letting my perfectionism hold me back (I want the write up to be "perfect").

Anyone else relate?

[1] http://amzn.to/2dZDaW4

Yes. So the book didn't help then? ;)

Lol. I'm half way through. But I just got it last week so all hope is not lost yet.

Thanks for suggesting this book. Because of your link I found the author's other book Mini-habits which I found super interesting too!

I think a lot of us fall into this trap too. I personally try to get over it by remembering that it's software and you can always change or improve it later. Initial version doesn't have to be perfect. Also, focus on the use case and get a crude working version. After, you can then move on to the little cleanups if time permits. If you're like me, once working version is ready you'll realize how little impact any of those micro optimizations have. Hopefully, after starting and finishing a few projects this way, you should realize bikeshedding is just taking time from another project you could be starting or working on.

I suffer from this, too. My solution has been to just write whatever code comes up and then commit it to its own branch. The anxiety of doing things right is then removed by the action of doing it. I can later revise the code and fix whatever issue it may have. Try it out. Its liberating.

I've just spent a day looking at HTML5 gaming engines, when I should probably have just picked the most popular one.

three.js

Not a waste of time imo. Engine choice is not bikeshedding

It is if you just want to build some game for fun in a few hours/days/weeks. It really does not matter that much then usually. And if you think you made the wrong choice, at least you have some working prototyping done which helps you with the rewrite.

Start with any and get your ideas flowing. You can always rewrite or change it later. You might find you don't even want to write a game and therefore the game engine decision matters even less than you think.

Story of my life.

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