Help HN: Commit to something publicly here. | Hacker News Reader

Help HN: Commit to something publicly here.

7 pointsmortenjorck5 comments

While it's a well-known strategy for self-motivation, seeing it mentioned again here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2131110) inspired the following exercise:

There's a goal you've been meaning to work toward. You're the only one holding yourself to it, and you haven't made the progress you want to so far.

Where should you be on it one month from now? Is it completable in that timeframe? How far along do you want to be? Post it here. Next month, in a follow-up thread, post an update.

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As I mentioned in the other thread, there is actually plenty of evidence against this view, evidence showing that publicly announcing your goals actually reduces your motivation.

Here is the same short TED talk I posted on the subject in the other thread: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4

Don't mean to rain on your parade, just trying to get all the relevant numbers out there. Your brain may vary.

While HN is a bit different, I find that a lot of content aggregation sites are big timewasters. (Most notably Reddit.) What does it matter if you have spent 20 minutes composing your life's story (or opinion) when it's going to be downvoted and forgotten in a day or two? That's 20 minutes (plus 3 minutes here and there to check for replies) that you have now wasted. Yes, your opinion matters, yes you are a shining star, a special snowflake... but what matters more, your goal or the satisfaction of showing them that your insignificant opinion matters?

Also, people learn and work best in short intervals. Spend 20 or 40 minutes focussed and then get up and go to the window. Stretch. Don't go to the fridge, you little piggy. Center yourself and still your mind. Flip the album over and go back to work.

Also, setting an unrealistic time goal might just drag you down, as you'll spend more time kicking yourself for having missed it than you will working to achieve it. Set milestones, and they don't have to be perfect. The output doesn't have to be perfect if you can prove to yourself that you've got the socket open and it isn't crashing. Refinement should be it's own milestone, anyway.

You can do it. Don't take my word for it, only your own.

Lol, I just gave you a pep talk when you were mentioning a strategy and wondering who out there had goals to discuss. I've got goals (some private, some professional) but I'd prefer to not discuss them til I've got some code to alpha. I'll leave my comment here, maybe it'll help you. I swear I won't waste time checking for replies, but just writing that all out was good for me. I'm a code from home type, and I'm now all covered in sweat from dancing around, having spent all day learning node.js.

As for me, I plan to have a rudimentary command of Cocoa by then, just enough to sketch a UI prototype for an app.

If people don't meet their goals, the thread will full of crickets or excuses.

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