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Comment by DannoHung | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with this. I think the most important thing is to just work on your project consistently. Whether that means working on it 20 minutes a day, an hour a week, or one day a month for you, just make sure you don't put it aside. If you have to skip one time, don't worry about it, but make DAMN sure you work on it next cycle.

Even if what you end up doing when you spend your piece of time is just some silly project maintenance, that's okay; you're coming back to it consistently and you're making some small progress.

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That's been my experience, and in hindsight I realize it's not because the little 20 minutes spurts add up to much, but because they tend to prevent the long, dark stretches of angst and doubt that come from not coding anything at all and having to work up the willpower to start up again. Most work (for me at least) gets done in intermittent bursts of productivity, but by doing something every day I don't have to climb a huge hill just to get to the point where I _could_ have one of those bursts.

Hi DannoHung,

Thanks for the great comment and I agree with your point. In fact, I experienced the same myself. There have been weeks where I didn't want to look at the code and subsequently nothing got done. There are other times though I fired up the IDE only to tweaked little things like a CSS style or refactor a simple method, only to find I had built up momentum and got lots of little things done.

This however wasn't the point to the article. The point I was trying to get at (perhaps not well), is the importance of setting a penalty when we didn't make a self-imposed deadline. So instead of just spending 20 mins tweaking a CSS, perhaps my time was better spent on the tasks which would actually contribute to the completion of the task. This focus on the end goal I believe can be a powerful force in helping us finish.

I can attest to that as I am the perpetual tweaker. Everytime I look at a site I'm building, I get more and more tired of its look and feel. So before I finish a project, often I'd have switched styles 10 times! For me, having the penalty clause helps me keep in focus.

Thanks for the great comment.

I've found it helpful to keep setting a countdown timer for 15- or 20-minute work intervals and 5-minute "goof off" intervals. That seems to be just enough to overcome inertia.

There's a small, inexpensive multi-function timer made by National Presto and available at Ace Hardware among other places - http://www.acehardwaresuperstore.com/presto-4-in-1-electroni...

For Windows Vista sidebar gadgets, there's an online stopwatch that works OK. http://www.online-stopwatch.com/vista-sidebar-stopwatch-gadg...

Thanks, DannoHung. Excellent advice!

I have a buddy who is a professional artist. Of course, he's talented, but he's still just a regular guy. I once asked him how he got so good and successful. "Easy," he said, "I paint every day."

Best programming advice I ever got. Ever since, I code every day.

I agree. The key is to move forward. The way I see it is that it's a journey, and no matter how long it takes, as long as I put at least one foot forward a day, no matter how small a step, it takes me closer to the destination. I might not get there for a while, but if I stop moving forward, I'm never going to get there.

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