How I stopped procrastinating, learned to code, and launched my first product | Hacker News Reader

How I stopped procrastinating, learned to code, and launched my first product

dev.to

147 pointsrbanffy40 comments

As someone who procrastinates and is interested in how people learn to code, I was looking forward to reading this. But there is no substance here about how she stopped procrastinating or how she learned to code. There's a reference to a coding school that she dropped out of, but we don't know why she dropped out, what she learned, or whether she'd recommend others to do the same. As for procrastination tips, the word "procrastinate" appears only in the title.

Looking forward to reading the sequel: How I stopped procrastinating, learned to write, and launched my content marketing blog.

Many people try to solve their procrastination by trying to renew their motivation. I find this to be very unreliable and it also has the potential of leading you down the rabbit hole of less important things like watching videos or reading articles like the one linked to here.

The only solution that worked for me and keeps me from relapsing into procrastination behaviour is the non-zero-days concept: Every day you do at least one thing to help you get closer to your end goal (whatever that is, can be multiple). It doesn't matter how much you do or how big the task is that you completed, just do something. Small things add up and before you know it you're already halfway there.

More often than not, this gets me in the right mindset and I end up accomplishing more than just the one small thing I set out to do.

This was a bit off-topic but hopefully it helps you.

This is so simple but sounds really promising. Many thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a shot.

This is what I do too. At the very least I'll open a few files, launch some terminals and cd into the requisite directories, start the development server, etc.

I also highly recommend trying the same with exercise. On days when I am sleep-deprived or too sore to do something more strenuous like lifting or sprinting, I take an hour long walk and then almost always feel rejuvenated by the next day. It really helps because you'll still feel like you haven't broken your routine.

> non-zero-days

This is wonderful advice. I've been using the same concept for the last month or so. When I get home from work I walk the dogs and then sit down and commit to putting in a little work on whatever personal project I'm working on. More often than not my 15 minute commitment turns into an hour or more of progress.

Procrastination is actually just a mild form of discomfort about what one perceives to be an overwhelming task. The "no zero days" mindset is excellent because it gets you past the initial discomfort and gets you into the stage where you're actually working on the thing. Once you are working on it, it becomes easier to keep working on it because you realize it isn't as bad as you perceived before you started.

The pomodoro technique is another thing that's commonly recommended, which is essentially the same. It helped me big time.

The great thing is that it applies to pretty much anything. Having trouble picking up a new programming language? Just look at the wiki on it and you'll probably find something that sparks your curiosity. Having trouble keeping up with exercise? Just walk for 1 minute and you won't want to stop. It's all about consistency over time.

Not off-topic at all! I actually have a (very productive) friend who ends every day by making a list of the three things he's going to start the next day working on. That way he doesn't waste time in the morning switching back and forth between a dozen tasks, completing none of them.

The Japanese concept of Kaizen to beat procrastination is similar: everyday at the same time, commit to working on your goal for 1 minute.

If you pick "do 1 pushup" as your goal, you'll be more inclined to start, and very likely to do more than 1.

(Can't remember where I read this 'hack'.)

Aka, "getting started is the hardest part."

This reminds me of Carol Dweck's "growth" mindset instead of "fixed pie" mindset

I used to be frustrated that I would go to work, code for the better part of the day and not feel my project was moving to the end.

I dedicated myself to finishing this sentence: "Today I accomplished....". Basically the same as finishing or doing one thing a day. Just like you I usually ended up with more than one thing, but I wouldn't leave for the day until I could finish that sentence.

It changed my life.

That non-zero day concept reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's calendar: https://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-s...

I believe I ready that somewhere else on Hacker News. At that time I wanted to learn guitar for a year. I've seen so many videos where people recorded themselves everyday for a year learning things and wanted to try it.

So, I got a notebook and created a daily log. The plan was to play at least 30 mins of guitar a day. I was to record myself every once in a while to keep a record of my progress.

So far I've made it to day 30! I broke the streak once because of prior commitment. It becomes a part of you and you feel bad/let down when you do not complete the daily ritual.

I'm planning on blogging the progress soon. Perhaps it may inspire others to pick a goal and seize it.

That's right, people often talk about motivation, but motivation is overrated. It's a fleeting and elusive feeling, and if you rely on it to get things done, you'll most likely get burnt sooner or later. Having the discipline to do things no matter what is the right approach, not only when coding but for other areas of life (like sports, dieting, or anything that doesn't give an instant reward and prone to be procrastinated).

Agreed. Seems more of a way to advertise her product than to actually share any wisdom. Still a pretty interesting product.

I thought the main piece of advice on that front was "Trust that slow progress is better than no progress". (It's even a section heading.)

That terse bit isn't unpacked very explicitly, but it shows up in the roundabout path the author took: coding bootcamp, contract work, finding a product idea.

As is pointed out in comments below, setting a lower goal barrier can help you get rolling. "Some progress is better than no progress" is, I think, the ultimate version of that.

Things that might work:

- if you are actually lazy: hunger, physiological or metaphorical depending on circumstances

- your perfectionism gets in the way: cult of done

- don’t have time: skip tv

- fear of starting/failing/completing (you might not even be aware of this): "the NOW habit"

Now, for a number of people at least a couple of these seems directly stupid.

That doesn't prevent them from being really useful for those who need them.

I wonder how many people this article temped into procrastinating by reading it, rather than doing their work, after it hit the front page of HN...

That's the rub

Does _just_ reading the comments count?

How many non-developers are reading "Hacker News"?, that's the question... usually almost everyone i read here has a background on it, even sysadmins that usually then to not classify themselves as developers know something about it.

Also with that name i first thought it was another NoSQL DBMS or IDE.

There are also non-technical cofounders, BD, and marketing folks. Would make for an interesting Ask HN!

I think the name is pretty brilliant, but I can see why you might not know exactly what it is until you see the app.

I'm a marketer. I consider myself fairly technical, can code a bit and can easily have technical discussions with engineers. I'm not a developer but I'd love to improve my skills and build a product one day.

Probably a fair few. MechE here myself. Software is interesting, informed conversation with technical people is nice to read.

I'm a chef/English teacher and taught myself to code. Reading the articles on here(actually mostly the comments), helps me learn about things I haven't heard of yet.

I'm a freelance writer. I joined HN hoping to learn to code. It hasn't yet happened.

Lots of people here are not programmers.

It's also really inspiring to see that the author managed to get it done working mostly alone as I understood. For me it was always the problem - if I can't get someone on board with me for some project, it stops me even if I would really love to work on it.

Lynne here! I wrote this article and hope I didn't make it sound like I did it all alone. I had a lot of help, guidance, mentorship, and support along the way.

While I don't have a cofounder or someone who is working alongside me on Key Values, I absolutely would not have gotten here without help. Even without a cofounder, people can (and should!) find help, guidance, mentorship, and support from forums like Indie Hackers and dev.to.

Thanks for the response, Lynne! Yeah, I read that you had to meet/talk/collaborate with different people and networking was really important part of your project. But what excited me was that how you turned the idea you love into the web-service, how you stayed motivated (even though as you said you don't have a co-founder), how you managed networking - these are wonderful examples to be inspired by (at least for me)!

That key values website has a terrific UX and design. I love it.

I agree ... took a side trip to look it over, and very impressed.

Agree, amazing UI... there was just something I was missing: it has a EQ > IQ "key value", but not IQ > EQ :(

This is an really interesting suggestion. Someone else in HN said the same thing a few weeks ago. To me, the default in engineering is to value IQ over EQ (this is why 99% of interviews lead and focus on the technical screening/assessment). Do you disagree?

> To me, the default in engineering is to value IQ over EQ

Possibly, but ideally there'd be some kind of explicit emphasis place on the importance of IQ, or explicitly committed to meritocracy, the idea being to avoid MBA management types and office politics and such... Well one can dream :D

Thank you! This means the world to me because I am not a designer and a ridiculous amount of trial and error went into getting Key Values to where it is today :)

Well done Lynne.

Anyone else think the name of the product simply can't be beaten? It's perfect.

Totally agreed! I think she nailed the name.

Thanks for sharing, great launch!

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