22 ms·

If you don’t finish then you’re just busy, not productive

426 points by jbsimpson 10y ago

blazespin 10y ago
Just redefine what it means to finish, and voila, you're productive.
- factorialboy 10y ago
  I see this happen around me all the time.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  Today I aim to post on HN. Get in!
  - Philomath 10y ago
    Today I aim to write my first ever comment! Done.
    - L-four 10y ago
      Today
- rabidrat 10y ago
  This is a must. Otherwise, things are never finished, no matter how productive you are.
SubiculumCode 10y ago
This has been true in my academic career also. The ability to say no is important.
hekker 10y ago
In my experience being productive is more a matter of setting a clear scope of goals on which I'm going to focus on the next X months. Other than the strict necessary tasks that might interrupt activities related to these goals, no extra goals may be added until one is finished. After that, at the beginning of each day I decided what micro-tasks I want to do (write paragraph X of paper, fix bug Y in project Z) and I don't go home until I am done. Everyday it seems like I am only doing small tasks but after time these tasks add up and I finish big projects. Big projects/goals are not finished over night, you need time. It's easy to get demotivated when there are big tasks ahead. The key is to chop them into do-able, reachable tasks and you hold yourself accountable to fix these tasks no matter what.
jen729w 10y ago
I realised I was guilty of this in 2016 so for 2017 I've made a few simple changes, the primary one being how I write my "project" name in OmniFocus. For instance, I had "Learn how to use bash properly". Well, what does that mean? When is that finished? It never is. Now, that project is called "Read 'Learning the bash shell'". Immediately, that's attainable. When I've finished reading the book, perhaps I'll want to do more, perhaps I won't. But at least I know that I'll have completed that project.
- maaaats 10y ago
  Yup, that's a big part of the "getting things done" (GTD) mindset. Write down small, actionable tasks that can be completed. Not fluffy goals.
- cel1ne 10y ago
  Why do you even set yourself such a goal? Just learn to use it when you need it, or when you have a task, where you suspect that it might be faster done in bash.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Reading a book on it can give you a better idea of which tasks might be faster done that way, so that when you run into one, you're better equipped to recognize it as such than you might otherwise be.
    - cel1ne 10y ago
      That is actually very correct. I remember reading a book about the Shell and bash 15 years ago. It was the only book I read about the topic, but it helped me a great deal to develop an intuition about what it can do. Didn't prevent me though from getting sometimes lost in crafting complex scripts, where manual work or a java-program would have been faster.
      - throwanem 10y ago
        Well, that's sort of the problem with bash scripting - its range of capabilities, combined with its atrocious syntax and various limitations, makes it something of an attractive nuisance, where you end up in a rabbit hole of "how do I do this in bash" while doing it in anything else would be more productive. Maybe the most important thing to learn about shell scripting is when not to use it. Alas, if the book that teaches that skill has been written, I have yet to run across it.
n1000 10y ago
I also learned this the hard way recently. I have always been extremely busy. But finishing a large project, such as a PhD, forced me to learn that one needs to check at least 1 or 2 of these boxes on the todo list in the evening. Otherwise there has been no progress and, even worse, I will go home frustrated and have burned a lot of energy. Oh yeah, and ask a doctor about ADD.
juiced 10y ago
To sum it up: An unripe fruit attracts no birds, they only come when it becomes sweet. -Ghost In The Shell 2, Innocence
pipio21 10y ago
One of the biggest Aha!! moments I had happened when I created my first company and realized how important joining people of different personalities together is in order to make them prosper. Making teams instead of solo work. For example a very good designer or visionary could see the forest but finds it very hard to face each individual tree. There are other people that can't see the forest by themselves but are extremely efficient working on tree after tree. You just join them together and magic happens. It is a terrible thing that our educational system favors so much individualism, even when most important work(Nobel prices, great products or services) are done in teams. When someone starts too many projects but finish none, for me is a symptom that he simply can't finish it alone. In my company I have gotten practice on making people finish things. This is probably the biggest thing Silicon Valley has, there is always someone who can help you and you help her too.
- gm-conspiracy 10y ago
  It is a terrible thing that our educational system favors so much individualism, even when most important work(Nobel prices, great products or services) are done in teams. I bet the one-room school house fostered the prosperity you mentioned. Cooperative learning is what I think you are describing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_learning
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  It is a terrible thing that our educational system favors so much individualism, even when most important work(Nobel prices, great products or services) are done in teams. Just to be clear this sounds intuitive but there's no underlying truth to how good work is done. John Nash and Tesla were crazy and were also at times very solitary thinkers. On the other hand, Edison was hailed as a creative genius but much of his work was done in a team laboratory setting. I am incredibly glad that the US fosters the individualism it does. You're probably able to make that comment on this message board because of it. That's not to say it doesn't have (major) flaws with people thinking they are the next coming of Alexander because they built a web app and forgetting the role that groups play in building individuals. However, I would absolutely hate to try and force creativity through a force socialization - we need more ways of thinking and doing and not less. I think even your wording says a lot: moments I had happened when I created my first company and realized how important joining people of different personalities together is in order to make them prosper. When someone starts too many projects but finish none, for me is a symptom that he simply can't finish it alone. In my company I have gotten practice on making people finish things. You are one type of thinker - but even here you are tempted to push that way of working onto others because it's the way to get things done (valid!). On the other hand, some people's productivity will plummet when they are forced to work and hate even the sentiment of joining people of different personalities together is in order to make them prosper - you could see someone hearing that from above resenting it.
greenspot 10y ago
Is 'not finishing' an inherent problem of being a coder and a coder's reward system? When I look at myself, coding is great when I learn new things, new APIs, can glue stuff together to create new systems which haven't been there before. Once I master a technology or have to do stuff which was done million times before it gets boring. Then, I rather seek for the next kick, the next API, the next language/framework/lib. So, having ongoing novelties seems to be an important part of a coder's reward system. This hurts finishing and going the last mile, the most difficult part of a project that is not about facing steady novelties. Often it even means to abandon the shiny new tech and rebuild stuff in some proven tech. However, the bad is you never finish, the good is you learn all the time. Better than checking Facebook, Instagram and your smartphone 24/7.
- dasboth 10y ago
  I find this as well. My motivation for new projects is 100x compared to my motivation to finish existing ones, and I feel part of it at least is because on the existing ones I've reached a point where I'm not learning anything from finishing them. The flipside is that I have a lot less work that I can point to having done, compared to how much I've actually done. Having 5 completed things to show is better (for "achievement" purposes) than 20 projects at 80%, but the rewards as you say favour the latter. This year I'm thinking about only working on projects where I'd actually use the outcome for something. If it's a project for the sake of learning library X, I won't do it. If it's a project to solve problem Y for myself, I'll try and work on that, learning anything I need along the way.
terrywang 10y ago
"Finish what you have started before starting / working on new projects/tasks." - My boss Following the GTD methodologies (it's been a long time habit), a lot of small things get to the bottom of the list while new ones keep coming along, properly prioritizing tasks is the key. After all, most people can only work on 3-5 tasks in parallel in real life.
delegate 10y ago
I generally agree with the article. However there is another side to the coin. The tldr is that Some things are better left unfinished. The longer version: Some projects are just experiments and learning exercises, even though at the moment we feel like this is going to change the world (note: the world will change anyway). The reality is that there's just too much stuff - physical products or digital applications, music or movies - it's just too much shit out there ! And not all of it is good, in fact, as with anything - most of it is crap which only adds to the cognitive noise or pollutes the environment. Why should you contribute your half-assed idea/project/product to the ocean of useless things, apps, art that's out there ? If during the initial phase of development you don't have a clear answer to this question, then it is OK to abandon it and move on to something else. There's no shame in accepting that most of the time we have shitty ideas. By "idea" I mean not just the actual technical stuff, but the whole "build a company" ideation that goes along with it - how you're going to get rich and get invited to TV shows, write blog posts which millions retweet and shit like that. A lot of young people unfortunately bet their youth and mental health on trying to prove otherwise. Creative energy is very similar to (if not the same as) sexual energy. It's something that just 'grows' inside us and it must be released. But not all of the sexual energy should be used for its intended purpose - creating new humans - otherwise we'd quickly run out of space on the Planet. Sometimes it is ok to just 'vent' and waste a little bit of that energy in order to make room for fresh 'energy' :). So it's ok to just "masturbate" intellectually from time to time without actually finishing it. Career-wise, you probably want to finish one or two, maybe several projects in your life.
- nerdponx 10y ago
  I agree, but it's easy to end up falling down a slippery slope this way. I think a better exercise would be "wrapping up" project that would otherwise sit on finished as quickly and dirtily as possible. If the project is failing, or you've expended its usefulness, Force yourself to "finish" in some way or another, just so it can be "done".
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- riskable 10y ago
nraynaud 10y ago
i have 2 counter points: - people with focus issue do their best to finish before the focus slips - people with depression tends to not finish, some shrinks thinks it's ok, because it's at least being active and it's a sign of seeking a path.
xolb 10y ago
> What is the minimal state of completion this project needs to reach for me to consider it a success and having been worth my time? I used to think like that, but this is a moving point. As long you finish a list of things that you deemed important, many others will replace the old ones and the list actually will never be empty. This feeling of fulfillment will never come. So I'm doing differently this time in my startup (that was also my side project for a while). I created a funnel and measured everything. I cannot develop anything on top of my head (We, developers, are creative by nature, and it's easy to find a myriad of interesting new features). The new feature needs to come from data and user feedback only. No exceptions. The funnel is completed and has being measured, then the project is completed. Everything beyond that is just optimization. This was a shift in my mind and I feel much better because I finished the project, instead of constantly open. And of course, this is not a mind tricky. The project is actually completed.
- laichzeit0 10y ago
  > user feedback only This reminds me of the quote by Henry Ford when he said if he had asked people what they wanted they would have told him "faster horses". Sometimes users don't know what they want till you give it to them.
  - xolb 10y ago
    This is the reason that I said DATA (that you measured) and user feedback. Furthermore, I am talking about the funnel, incremental changes. Ford probably got user feedback to make the car better. What you said comes before.
  - galvin 10y ago
    That is valuable feedback. It tells you horses are too slow.
benologist 10y ago
I think if your goal is launching you've got to make sure the work you're doing is enabling that to happen sooner. Once you start prioritizing as little as possible into pre- and as much as possible into post- launch bad ideas start filtering themselves out during the wait. I think one of the big traps is convincing yourself part of 'make x to do y' always includes 'learn a new stack' that will be 1% technically-better but 800% slower than what you used last time. Pretty crap optimization if you goal is to launch anything. I think for developers on HN it's also very easy to build something with the expectation we'll want to discuss it 2 - 3 times a week on the front page for them to get users, neatly solving the business side in advance!
m3kw9 10y ago
For learners, finishing matters because: 1. The learning you get from going thru whole cycle is valuable for next projects. Even if you release a few turds. Say you release an iOS app as a measure of finish. For veterans, finishing does not matter because: 1. If you see a piece a piece of turd and not able to say no to it, you will probably be wasting valuable time finishing to save face as the author may suggest. --- Is like in war, you need to know when to retreat, and cut losses(save your time and not finish). That's the perplexing part is when to retreat at the right time.
mosselman 10y ago
While I agree with regards to being productive and I also agree that 'finishing' things feels good, I still doubt that 'being productive' should always be the goal. I have discarded many 'side projects', but the lessons learned from those projects have made me a lot more productive in my job. For most projects I don't even feel bad about the time I spent doing them since I had fun figuring out how to implement some of those things. Take playing sports for example. I like to play football, the kind played with my feet and a ball, not the one played with one's hands and a oval leather air container. This is never 'finished', but doing so I exercise my body, clear my mind and most importantly, I have fun. I see a parallel for one game of football with figuring out how to test some external API in a side project. After discarding the side project (a few games of football) I still know how to test external APIs. Just as playing 1 game of football won't get me any closer to winning the champions league, my condition (skills) are better and I had fun (fun) along the way. Stop being so hard on yourself. If you DO want to create a serious company out of your side project it probably IS a good idea not to let yourself get distracted by other fun projects along the way though. Especially if you are juggling a full-time job along side of it.
bryogenic 10y ago
Is it just me or is the title sentence difficult to parse? Is this a correct interpretation of the author’s intent: > Having a habit of not finishing your side projects means you are a busy person; not an unproductive one. The author never came back to the word “productivity” or what that means to him in relation to side projects so I don’t feel like I can say with convection that my re-wording is correct.
- j_jochem 10y ago
  I interpreted the headline as saying if you don't finish your projects, you're not productive but busy.
  - bryogenic 10y ago
    So which is it is saying: > You are both unproductive and busy (both bad) > You are both unproductive and busy (but busy is okay) > You are productive but also busy > You are unproductive because of your busyness This is hard for me because productivity invokes delivering value. Busyness invokes behaviors that take up time but deliver less value. Conflating these two with out really going into any of their virtues and how they interact with each other seems glossed over.
sevensor 10y ago
So, to summarize, he's writing blog posts about finishing things instead of writing his dissertation.
- Strom 10y ago
  He finished the blog post. That can already be a motivating factor as the list of finished things has increased.
  - sevensor 10y ago
    Or it can be a demotivating factor, as the list of things he's finished has increased but he's not a single step closer to finishing. I've seen lots of grad students invent plausible reasons to do things that aren't finishing the dissertation, and this blog post fits that description.
z3t4 10y ago
the secret to finish a project is to set a realistic goal
tzakrajs 10y ago
I drop projects that seem interesting at the outset or in abstract when they stop being rewarding. It is better to move on to the next project, because you could learn something substantial about the world around you while your head is up. Eventually there will be a project that you cant shake and you execute fully on it.
ausjke 10y ago
Agile, MVP are all designed to cope with that, i.e. deliver from the start, and grow along the way.
dufhlwiuegh 10y ago
As a prolific non-finisher I have to disagree to make myself feel better. My laptop is littered with half-done projects but so what ? They're simply sketches, explorations, they were never intended to be anything great. You explore a path and see where it goes...sometimes it fizzles out and that's fine. I've got some projects I've been revisiting on and off for like 8 years and they'll probably never amount to anything, but they help me learn about a particular aspect of coding or maths.
andersonmvd 10y ago
"You call it procrastination, I call it thinking", that's a quote I heard in a TED talk :) Leonardo da Vinci seems to be one of those who procrastinated/thought a lot.
mixmastamyk 10y ago
People often work with a personal trainer in the gym for the same reasons. The trainer's knowledge is useful of course, but obligation and teamwork is a major success factor as well.
dheera 10y ago
It also depends on your own risk/reward equilibrium for personal side projects vs. career projects. I take much bigger risks with personal projects than career projects. I don't care if 95% or more of them fail or are not completed for good reasons (cost, physically impossible, etc.). To a great degree, I don't even tell people about the failed personal projects. In fact that's one thing I love about personal projects. With career projects, the most annoying thing to me is that you are forced to tell people (cofounders, employees, investors, customers, family, friends) what you're going to do, and then you have to try to live up to it. With personal projects you don't have to tell anyone. And because you don't tell anyone, you won't be discouraged by anyone. You can set out to build A, and end up building B, or end up building nothing and just having a good time, and you don't have to worry about leaving a bad impression. If you built A, you say you built A. If you built B, you say you built B. If you built nothing, you say nothing at all. It's awesome. The point is I don't like saying anything until I've actually built something that minimally works. If you're motivated and disciplined enough, this is an excellent framework for exploration. In particular, the human ego/desire to say something means that I'm motivated to keep at it until I have built something that allows me (under this framework) to say something.
tonyedgecombe 10y ago
I don't have problems finishing but I find it exhausting, I guess it's the effort of forcing myself to complete all the tedious details required at the end of a project. I usually need a few weeks at least before I start the next project.
LifeQuestioner 10y ago
"Under that system, things like polishing and refactoring my code (which can be a valuable use of your time, but I would frequently use them to procrastinate), counted equally towards my goals for the day, even if I wasn’t actually making any real progress." ...so set the goal before you start your Pomodo task. That's what I do. I choose something I can get done in say and hour and start the task for an hour and try and get it done during this time. This also gamifies my time, and I have to keep redirecting my focus on the goal. I get shitloads done during this. During my 10 minute break in between, i'll reflect on the task, decide next goal, etc. And repeat.
Allower 10y ago
This is basically nonsense. Why are we assuming that finishing something has intrinsic value? In fact its often a waste of time to pursue something so far. I would argue the most value in any experience is the lesson learned, NOT the blog post you choose to write about it. The point is to satisfy your curiosity and thirst for knowledge not to publish your ramblings for random strangers online. Finishing things just for the sake of 'finishing' (an term that is never clearly defined in the scope of the article), is absurd.
deavmi 10y ago
I can identify. Need to cut it out.

426 points by jbsimpson 10y ago

blazespin 10y ago

Just redefine what it means to finish, and voila, you're productive.

factorialboy 10y ago
I see this happen around me all the time.
bbcbasic 10y ago
Today I aim to post on HN. Get in!
- Philomath 10y ago
  Today I aim to write my first ever comment! Done.
  - L-four 10y ago
    Today
rabidrat 10y ago
This is a must. Otherwise, things are never finished, no matter how productive you are.

SubiculumCode 10y ago

This has been true in my academic career also. The ability to say no is important.

hekker 10y ago

In my experience being productive is more a matter of setting a clear scope of goals on which I'm going to focus on the next X months. Other than the strict necessary tasks that might interrupt activities related to these goals, no extra goals may be added until one is finished. After that, at the beginning of each day I decided what micro-tasks I want to do (write paragraph X of paper, fix bug Y in project Z) and I don't go home until I am done. Everyday it seems like I am only doing small tasks but after time these tasks add up and I finish big projects. Big projects/goals are not finished over night, you need time. It's easy to get demotivated when there are big tasks ahead. The key is to chop them into do-able, reachable tasks and you hold yourself accountable to fix these tasks no matter what.

jen729w 10y ago

I realised I was guilty of this in 2016 so for 2017 I've made a few simple changes, the primary one being how I write my "project" name in OmniFocus. For instance, I had "Learn how to use bash properly". Well, what does that mean? When is that finished? It never is. Now, that project is called "Read 'Learning the bash shell'". Immediately, that's attainable. When I've finished reading the book, perhaps I'll want to do more, perhaps I won't. But at least I know that I'll have completed that project.

maaaats 10y ago
Yup, that's a big part of the "getting things done" (GTD) mindset. Write down small, actionable tasks that can be completed. Not fluffy goals.
cel1ne 10y ago
Why do you even set yourself such a goal? Just learn to use it when you need it, or when you have a task, where you suspect that it might be faster done in bash.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Reading a book on it can give you a better idea of which tasks might be faster done that way, so that when you run into one, you're better equipped to recognize it as such than you might otherwise be.
  - cel1ne 10y ago
    That is actually very correct. I remember reading a book about the Shell and bash 15 years ago. It was the only book I read about the topic, but it helped me a great deal to develop an intuition about what it can do. Didn't prevent me though from getting sometimes lost in crafting complex scripts, where manual work or a java-program would have been faster.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      Well, that's sort of the problem with bash scripting - its range of capabilities, combined with its atrocious syntax and various limitations, makes it something of an attractive nuisance, where you end up in a rabbit hole of "how do I do this in bash" while doing it in anything else would be more productive. Maybe the most important thing to learn about shell scripting is when not to use it. Alas, if the book that teaches that skill has been written, I have yet to run across it.

n1000 10y ago

I also learned this the hard way recently. I have always been extremely busy. But finishing a large project, such as a PhD, forced me to learn that one needs to check at least 1 or 2 of these boxes on the todo list in the evening. Otherwise there has been no progress and, even worse, I will go home frustrated and have burned a lot of energy. Oh yeah, and ask a doctor about ADD.

juiced 10y ago

To sum it up: An unripe fruit attracts no birds, they only come when it becomes sweet. -Ghost In The Shell 2, Innocence

pipio21 10y ago

One of the biggest Aha!! moments I had happened when I created my first company and realized how important joining people of different personalities together is in order to make them prosper. Making teams instead of solo work. For example a very good designer or visionary could see the forest but finds it very hard to face each individual tree. There are other people that can't see the forest by themselves but are extremely efficient working on tree after tree. You just join them together and magic happens. It is a terrible thing that our educational system favors so much individualism, even when most important work(Nobel prices, great products or services) are done in teams. When someone starts too many projects but finish none, for me is a symptom that he simply can't finish it alone. In my company I have gotten practice on making people finish things. This is probably the biggest thing Silicon Valley has, there is always someone who can help you and you help her too.

gm-conspiracy 10y ago
It is a terrible thing that our educational system favors so much individualism, even when most important work(Nobel prices, great products or services) are done in teams. I bet the one-room school house fostered the prosperity you mentioned. Cooperative learning is what I think you are describing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_learning
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
aaron-lebo 10y ago
It is a terrible thing that our educational system favors so much individualism, even when most important work(Nobel prices, great products or services) are done in teams. Just to be clear this sounds intuitive but there's no underlying truth to how good work is done. John Nash and Tesla were crazy and were also at times very solitary thinkers. On the other hand, Edison was hailed as a creative genius but much of his work was done in a team laboratory setting. I am incredibly glad that the US fosters the individualism it does. You're probably able to make that comment on this message board because of it. That's not to say it doesn't have (major) flaws with people thinking they are the next coming of Alexander because they built a web app and forgetting the role that groups play in building individuals. However, I would absolutely hate to try and force creativity through a force socialization - we need more ways of thinking and doing and not less. I think even your wording says a lot: moments I had happened when I created my first company and realized how important joining people of different personalities together is in order to make them prosper. When someone starts too many projects but finish none, for me is a symptom that he simply can't finish it alone. In my company I have gotten practice on making people finish things. You are one type of thinker - but even here you are tempted to push that way of working onto others because it's the way to get things done (valid!). On the other hand, some people's productivity will plummet when they are forced to work and hate even the sentiment of joining people of different personalities together is in order to make them prosper - you could see someone hearing that from above resenting it.

greenspot 10y ago

Is 'not finishing' an inherent problem of being a coder and a coder's reward system? When I look at myself, coding is great when I learn new things, new APIs, can glue stuff together to create new systems which haven't been there before. Once I master a technology or have to do stuff which was done million times before it gets boring. Then, I rather seek for the next kick, the next API, the next language/framework/lib. So, having ongoing novelties seems to be an important part of a coder's reward system. This hurts finishing and going the last mile, the most difficult part of a project that is not about facing steady novelties. Often it even means to abandon the shiny new tech and rebuild stuff in some proven tech. However, the bad is you never finish, the good is you learn all the time. Better than checking Facebook, Instagram and your smartphone 24/7.

dasboth 10y ago
I find this as well. My motivation for new projects is 100x compared to my motivation to finish existing ones, and I feel part of it at least is because on the existing ones I've reached a point where I'm not learning anything from finishing them. The flipside is that I have a lot less work that I can point to having done, compared to how much I've actually done. Having 5 completed things to show is better (for "achievement" purposes) than 20 projects at 80%, but the rewards as you say favour the latter. This year I'm thinking about only working on projects where I'd actually use the outcome for something. If it's a project for the sake of learning library X, I won't do it. If it's a project to solve problem Y for myself, I'll try and work on that, learning anything I need along the way.

terrywang 10y ago

"Finish what you have started before starting / working on new projects/tasks." - My boss Following the GTD methodologies (it's been a long time habit), a lot of small things get to the bottom of the list while new ones keep coming along, properly prioritizing tasks is the key. After all, most people can only work on 3-5 tasks in parallel in real life.

delegate 10y ago

I generally agree with the article. However there is another side to the coin. The tldr is that Some things are better left unfinished. The longer version: Some projects are just experiments and learning exercises, even though at the moment we feel like this is going to change the world (note: the world will change anyway). The reality is that there's just too much stuff - physical products or digital applications, music or movies - it's just too much shit out there ! And not all of it is good, in fact, as with anything - most of it is crap which only adds to the cognitive noise or pollutes the environment. Why should you contribute your half-assed idea/project/product to the ocean of useless things, apps, art that's out there ? If during the initial phase of development you don't have a clear answer to this question, then it is OK to abandon it and move on to something else. There's no shame in accepting that most of the time we have shitty ideas. By "idea" I mean not just the actual technical stuff, but the whole "build a company" ideation that goes along with it - how you're going to get rich and get invited to TV shows, write blog posts which millions retweet and shit like that. A lot of young people unfortunately bet their youth and mental health on trying to prove otherwise. Creative energy is very similar to (if not the same as) sexual energy. It's something that just 'grows' inside us and it must be released. But not all of the sexual energy should be used for its intended purpose - creating new humans - otherwise we'd quickly run out of space on the Planet. Sometimes it is ok to just 'vent' and waste a little bit of that energy in order to make room for fresh 'energy' :). So it's ok to just "masturbate" intellectually from time to time without actually finishing it. Career-wise, you probably want to finish one or two, maybe several projects in your life.

nerdponx 10y ago
I agree, but it's easy to end up falling down a slippery slope this way. I think a better exercise would be "wrapping up" project that would otherwise sit on finished as quickly and dirtily as possible. If the project is failing, or you've expended its usefulness, Force yourself to "finish" in some way or another, just so it can be "done".
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
riskable 10y ago

nraynaud 10y ago

i have 2 counter points: - people with focus issue do their best to finish before the focus slips - people with depression tends to not finish, some shrinks thinks it's ok, because it's at least being active and it's a sign of seeking a path.

xolb 10y ago

> What is the minimal state of completion this project needs to reach for me to consider it a success and having been worth my time? I used to think like that, but this is a moving point. As long you finish a list of things that you deemed important, many others will replace the old ones and the list actually will never be empty. This feeling of fulfillment will never come. So I'm doing differently this time in my startup (that was also my side project for a while). I created a funnel and measured everything. I cannot develop anything on top of my head (We, developers, are creative by nature, and it's easy to find a myriad of interesting new features). The new feature needs to come from data and user feedback only. No exceptions. The funnel is completed and has being measured, then the project is completed. Everything beyond that is just optimization. This was a shift in my mind and I feel much better because I finished the project, instead of constantly open. And of course, this is not a mind tricky. The project is actually completed.

laichzeit0 10y ago
> user feedback only This reminds me of the quote by Henry Ford when he said if he had asked people what they wanted they would have told him "faster horses". Sometimes users don't know what they want till you give it to them.
- xolb 10y ago
  This is the reason that I said DATA (that you measured) and user feedback. Furthermore, I am talking about the funnel, incremental changes. Ford probably got user feedback to make the car better. What you said comes before.
- galvin 10y ago
  That is valuable feedback. It tells you horses are too slow.

benologist 10y ago

I think if your goal is launching you've got to make sure the work you're doing is enabling that to happen sooner. Once you start prioritizing as little as possible into pre- and as much as possible into post- launch bad ideas start filtering themselves out during the wait. I think one of the big traps is convincing yourself part of 'make x to do y' always includes 'learn a new stack' that will be 1% technically-better but 800% slower than what you used last time. Pretty crap optimization if you goal is to launch anything. I think for developers on HN it's also very easy to build something with the expectation we'll want to discuss it 2 - 3 times a week on the front page for them to get users, neatly solving the business side in advance!

m3kw9 10y ago

For learners, finishing matters because: 1. The learning you get from going thru whole cycle is valuable for next projects. Even if you release a few turds. Say you release an iOS app as a measure of finish. For veterans, finishing does not matter because: 1. If you see a piece a piece of turd and not able to say no to it, you will probably be wasting valuable time finishing to save face as the author may suggest. --- Is like in war, you need to know when to retreat, and cut losses(save your time and not finish). That's the perplexing part is when to retreat at the right time.

mosselman 10y ago

While I agree with regards to being productive and I also agree that 'finishing' things feels good, I still doubt that 'being productive' should always be the goal. I have discarded many 'side projects', but the lessons learned from those projects have made me a lot more productive in my job. For most projects I don't even feel bad about the time I spent doing them since I had fun figuring out how to implement some of those things. Take playing sports for example. I like to play football, the kind played with my feet and a ball, not the one played with one's hands and a oval leather air container. This is never 'finished', but doing so I exercise my body, clear my mind and most importantly, I have fun. I see a parallel for one game of football with figuring out how to test some external API in a side project. After discarding the side project (a few games of football) I still know how to test external APIs. Just as playing 1 game of football won't get me any closer to winning the champions league, my condition (skills) are better and I had fun (fun) along the way. Stop being so hard on yourself. If you DO want to create a serious company out of your side project it probably IS a good idea not to let yourself get distracted by other fun projects along the way though. Especially if you are juggling a full-time job along side of it.

bryogenic 10y ago

Is it just me or is the title sentence difficult to parse? Is this a correct interpretation of the author’s intent: > Having a habit of not finishing your side projects means you are a busy person; not an unproductive one. The author never came back to the word “productivity” or what that means to him in relation to side projects so I don’t feel like I can say with convection that my re-wording is correct.

j_jochem 10y ago
I interpreted the headline as saying if you don't finish your projects, you're not productive but busy.
- bryogenic 10y ago
  So which is it is saying: > You are both unproductive and busy (both bad) > You are both unproductive and busy (but busy is okay) > You are productive but also busy > You are unproductive because of your busyness This is hard for me because productivity invokes delivering value. Busyness invokes behaviors that take up time but deliver less value. Conflating these two with out really going into any of their virtues and how they interact with each other seems glossed over.

sevensor 10y ago

So, to summarize, he's writing blog posts about finishing things instead of writing his dissertation.

Strom 10y ago
He finished the blog post. That can already be a motivating factor as the list of finished things has increased.
- sevensor 10y ago
  Or it can be a demotivating factor, as the list of things he's finished has increased but he's not a single step closer to finishing. I've seen lots of grad students invent plausible reasons to do things that aren't finishing the dissertation, and this blog post fits that description.

z3t4 10y ago

the secret to finish a project is to set a realistic goal

tzakrajs 10y ago

I drop projects that seem interesting at the outset or in abstract when they stop being rewarding. It is better to move on to the next project, because you could learn something substantial about the world around you while your head is up. Eventually there will be a project that you cant shake and you execute fully on it.

ausjke 10y ago

Agile, MVP are all designed to cope with that, i.e. deliver from the start, and grow along the way.

dufhlwiuegh 10y ago

As a prolific non-finisher I have to disagree to make myself feel better. My laptop is littered with half-done projects but so what ? They're simply sketches, explorations, they were never intended to be anything great. You explore a path and see where it goes...sometimes it fizzles out and that's fine. I've got some projects I've been revisiting on and off for like 8 years and they'll probably never amount to anything, but they help me learn about a particular aspect of coding or maths.

andersonmvd 10y ago

"You call it procrastination, I call it thinking", that's a quote I heard in a TED talk :) Leonardo da Vinci seems to be one of those who procrastinated/thought a lot.

mixmastamyk 10y ago

People often work with a personal trainer in the gym for the same reasons. The trainer's knowledge is useful of course, but obligation and teamwork is a major success factor as well.

dheera 10y ago

It also depends on your own risk/reward equilibrium for personal side projects vs. career projects. I take much bigger risks with personal projects than career projects. I don't care if 95% or more of them fail or are not completed for good reasons (cost, physically impossible, etc.). To a great degree, I don't even tell people about the failed personal projects. In fact that's one thing I love about personal projects. With career projects, the most annoying thing to me is that you are forced to tell people (cofounders, employees, investors, customers, family, friends) what you're going to do, and then you have to try to live up to it. With personal projects you don't have to tell anyone. And because you don't tell anyone, you won't be discouraged by anyone. You can set out to build A, and end up building B, or end up building nothing and just having a good time, and you don't have to worry about leaving a bad impression. If you built A, you say you built A. If you built B, you say you built B. If you built nothing, you say nothing at all. It's awesome. The point is I don't like saying anything until I've actually built something that minimally works. If you're motivated and disciplined enough, this is an excellent framework for exploration. In particular, the human ego/desire to say something means that I'm motivated to keep at it until I have built something that allows me (under this framework) to say something.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago

I don't have problems finishing but I find it exhausting, I guess it's the effort of forcing myself to complete all the tedious details required at the end of a project. I usually need a few weeks at least before I start the next project.

LifeQuestioner 10y ago

"Under that system, things like polishing and refactoring my code (which can be a valuable use of your time, but I would frequently use them to procrastinate), counted equally towards my goals for the day, even if I wasn’t actually making any real progress." ...so set the goal before you start your Pomodo task. That's what I do. I choose something I can get done in say and hour and start the task for an hour and try and get it done during this time. This also gamifies my time, and I have to keep redirecting my focus on the goal. I get shitloads done during this. During my 10 minute break in between, i'll reflect on the task, decide next goal, etc. And repeat.

Allower 10y ago

This is basically nonsense. Why are we assuming that finishing something has intrinsic value? In fact its often a waste of time to pursue something so far. I would argue the most value in any experience is the lesson learned, NOT the blog post you choose to write about it. The point is to satisfy your curiosity and thirst for knowledge not to publish your ramblings for random strangers online. Finishing things just for the sake of 'finishing' (an term that is never clearly defined in the scope of the article), is absurd.

deavmi 10y ago

I can identify. Need to cut it out.