Procrastinating? Find the Next Step Up | Hacker News Reader

Procrastinating? Find the Next Step Up

mostlymaths.net

22 pointsRBerenguel9 comments

I noticed a pattern with many of my side-projects: I would work furiously in my spare time for a few months, and wind up with something "very nearly done". Then I'd take a break for a week or two, just to get some perspective and figure out what really needed to be done to "finish" the project.

Of course I never returned to any of these projects.

My new approach is just to do something on my current side project, without fail, every day. There is no "finish", there's just work, and it really is more enjoyable.

This is the best approach. I already wrote about that in my blog (I called it Continuous Improvement) and for me it is also the most effective way to deal with side projects (like, say, improving my blog ;)

I face the same thing as yours. I will try to follow your new approach.

This feels like a big insight, that when my current project has a "cliff" after which it will end and cease to be important (to me, or so it feels), motivation is very difficult.

I will be thinking about this at work today, and of ways to convince my brain that there isn't actually a sharp end.

Honestly, Nike's had it right all along: Just do it. Tough to make yourself sometimes, but still true.

Second this, all the thinking and planning in the world often pales compared to:

Sit down where you need to do the work / Open the tool you need to do the work / Do the work.

I don't program, but I paint / illustrate outside of my day job and the only way I've ever, ever gotten over the 80% hump is to just physically be where I need to be and force a handful of actions to get moving.

Also, resetting the "done" point is important - sometimes you're lagging because you've actually finished, you just need to call it, clean it up and ship it, even if it means sacrificing some of the ideals / nice to haves you had planned.

It is actually just the opposite for me - a clear, clean completion to a project makes it easier for me - at least it has a definite and obvious goal and end-point to work toward. It is more open-ended projects that I find hard to work on as I should.

Interesting! You don't subscribe my love to "open ended paths" (i.e. activities with no end in sight, like karate, guitar playing, etc)? Or you just refer to work specific projects?

I am an autodidact and try to work on open ended paths studying maths and so on, but discovered I need to have some specific end point to work toward or I tend to flake around doing easy reading and stuff rather than staying focused.

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