Ask HN: Can't get motivated. Help?
4 comments
When I have motivational difficulties, I've found that they usually stem from one of two root causes:
1.) I subconsciously know that what I'm doing is pointless and so my subconscious won't let me waste any more time on it.
2.) I'm lacking one or more skills to make the project happen, but don't consciously realize it, and need to spend time burning in the necessary skills before I can return to "the big job".
In either case, the solution's the same: work on something else for a while. That's what I'd recommend for you.
As for war stories of defeat and then emerging triumphant, I've got a couple...
My first big project that I initiated myself was supposed to be a quick PHP rewrite of a large Harry Potter fanfiction site. I was in college, had worked for a year as a programmer beforehand, and thought it'd take six months. When I started digging into it, I realized I had no idea how to architect a big webapp and a whole bunch of little corner cases that were about to make my job really different. Unlike you, though, I couldn't give up: other people were depending on me, and we'd already announced the rewrite to our ~40,000 users (lesson learned: never preannounce software). I finally finished more than 3 years later, after I'd graduated, having banged out a couple of other PHP webapps in the meantime for my college.
When I was doing Diffle.com, I got to the point where I had to convert my cofounder's Photoshop mockups to HTML/CSS and bogged down. I'd never done the front-end of a website before; I'd always had other people do the HTML and hand it to me to turn into templates. So I shelved it for a couple weeks, launched another website with a dead-simple layout, and then came back to it. After having launched something else, I found my CSS issues were much easier to resolve.
1.) I subconsciously know that what I'm doing is pointless and so my subconscious won't let me waste any more time on it.
2.) I'm lacking one or more skills to make the project happen, but don't consciously realize it, and need to spend time burning in the necessary skills before I can return to "the big job".
In either case, the solution's the same: work on something else for a while. That's what I'd recommend for you.
As for war stories of defeat and then emerging triumphant, I've got a couple...
My first big project that I initiated myself was supposed to be a quick PHP rewrite of a large Harry Potter fanfiction site. I was in college, had worked for a year as a programmer beforehand, and thought it'd take six months. When I started digging into it, I realized I had no idea how to architect a big webapp and a whole bunch of little corner cases that were about to make my job really different. Unlike you, though, I couldn't give up: other people were depending on me, and we'd already announced the rewrite to our ~40,000 users (lesson learned: never preannounce software). I finally finished more than 3 years later, after I'd graduated, having banged out a couple of other PHP webapps in the meantime for my college.
When I was doing Diffle.com, I got to the point where I had to convert my cofounder's Photoshop mockups to HTML/CSS and bogged down. I'd never done the front-end of a website before; I'd always had other people do the HTML and hand it to me to turn into templates. So I shelved it for a couple weeks, launched another website with a dead-simple layout, and then came back to it. After having launched something else, I found my CSS issues were much easier to resolve.
Your problem is, you're thinking up ideas everyone else has thought up. I find when I'm demotivated, I'm really working on something I know will fail. If you don't believe in your product, you're going to fall short of any motivation very early into development.
Here's the tip, work small, but think big.
Focus on a niche, not the entire world. A dating site is nice and all, but, you've got eharmony.com, match.com, singles.com, and you're real big competitor, plentyoffish.com. A social network is nice and all, but you've got Facebook.
It sounds like your taste exceeds your skills. I know the feeling, and trust me it's the worst thing in the world. But if you want success, channel that frustration and make it work for you. Learn the fundamentals, and just try and try and try. Before you know it, you've gotten better. And as time progresses, you've become the best in your industry.
So three things. ONE: Be innovative. TWO: Be small. THREE: Hustle your face off.
--EDIT--
Oh yeah, another thing. Don't get caught up in the little things. If you really want to be an entrepreneur FOCUS ON THE BIG PICTURE. If you like programming, but feel like you're getting lost in all the fiddly bits, then find a framework or language that doesn't cost you time. If you like designing, but feel like you're wasting your time trying to figure out where elements go, find a great design and understand what makes it great. Look to others to show you the way so that you understand the bottom line. Time == motivation. Motivation == success. Success == Awesomeness.
Here's the tip, work small, but think big.
Focus on a niche, not the entire world. A dating site is nice and all, but, you've got eharmony.com, match.com, singles.com, and you're real big competitor, plentyoffish.com. A social network is nice and all, but you've got Facebook.
It sounds like your taste exceeds your skills. I know the feeling, and trust me it's the worst thing in the world. But if you want success, channel that frustration and make it work for you. Learn the fundamentals, and just try and try and try. Before you know it, you've gotten better. And as time progresses, you've become the best in your industry.
So three things. ONE: Be innovative. TWO: Be small. THREE: Hustle your face off.
--EDIT--
Oh yeah, another thing. Don't get caught up in the little things. If you really want to be an entrepreneur FOCUS ON THE BIG PICTURE. If you like programming, but feel like you're getting lost in all the fiddly bits, then find a framework or language that doesn't cost you time. If you like designing, but feel like you're wasting your time trying to figure out where elements go, find a great design and understand what makes it great. Look to others to show you the way so that you understand the bottom line. Time == motivation. Motivation == success. Success == Awesomeness.
You may find the solution at
(1) http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/25/0329226
(2) http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.402425.9...
(1) http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/25/0329226
(2) http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.402425.9...
Do something - anything - even if you know it's wrong. You're bound to hit upon something eventually. Just don't waste good time.
I figured it would be a good way to do something simple and cut my teeth on some new technologies. I had a plan. The code would be written in PHP. I would use MySql for the database. Apache would serve up the HTTP requests. I could simply start with the Ubuntu Linux desktop at my house. Dynamic DNS would keep my site Web accessible over my little cable modem. With this infrastructure in place I decided to get started.
I seemed to have everything planned out. I had been attending a local PHP meetup. I started discussing the site I was readying myself to design and acquired some help in the form of free hosting services. I was planning on using PHP and MySql and because my colleague's hosting service provided these, I switched over. I just pointed my domain name to his servers and started a very minimally designed site. At this point, you could (and still can) create an account, choose whether you're male or female, add your own tag line and select an age range.
I figured I'd just code away and a fully functional dating site would crystalize before my very eyes. For instance, I had ideas and wrote some code for doing the site in multiple languages like English, Spanish, German, Russian and Japanese. I also started researching AdSense and how to actually drive traffic to my site.
It seemed as if I was learning something new everyday. I was also becoming more and more aware of how little I actually understood. This was a good thing and didn't stop me from forging on.
However, it seems there are a lot of ways to go about not getting something done. There were seemingly minor distractions in the form of work, home and family. That, along with my knack for procrastination, somehow kept me away from really making steady progress.A few days of no progress turned into weeks and months. It seemed that I was a little disgusted with my inaction and didn't want to face all of the work I should've completed by now.
So what really happened?
It seems I've lost all of my momentum and no longer have the desire to keep going with this, not really original, idea. I really wanted to architect a unique experience compared to all of the other dating sites out there. I'll tell you right now. With a 9-to-5 grind that I'm really starting to dislike and continuous family obligations (paying loads of attention to my three-year-old, moved into a new house in a new city with new schools, dealing with my teenage son's issues, etc), it's really difficult to focus on a little web site design.
I don't really think I wish to do a dating site anymore. I definitely do want to do something that brings people together at some personal level. I love coding and database design and need to get some more experience in web design (even design, in general). Perhaps a social networking site? Here I go again. I really have a problem with attempting to bite off more than I can chew.
Maybe I'm thinking too big here. I don't know. It's really hard at this point for me to even come up with simple ideas that solve real problems. I'm not sure if I just need to take a step back and not do anything remotely useful for a while. Yet, at this point, I don't think I'm burned out. Am I in denial?
I guess I'm just seeking out a way to somehow restore my motivation so I'm reaching out to all of you for help.
Any war stories of defeat after defeat and finally emerging triumphant against all odds?
-- onebigcatch.com