7 ms·

A response to “How to never complete anything”

270 points by fvargas 10y ago

mikekchar 10y ago
Basically I agree, but I think you can put it more simply: this is how we learn. 5 years into your career is a really short time. I know that people feel like they should be (or are) at the peak of their powers 5 years in, but that's kind of delusional. Running a big successful project should not be your goal (IMHO) that early on. I've got a couple of very long projects under my belt (none really successful), but I've learned dramatically more from my hundreds (or thousands) of aborted projects than I have from those ones that I stuck with for 5-7 years. Give yourself permission to play. It's important. If you have a long term, successful project, you will not have much time for play any more.
vinceguidry 10y ago
Very, very good reply, I'm glad I skipped past the unnecessary point-by-point at the beginning to get to the real meat of the reply. There are a few weird and irrational biases I see going on amongst techies who frequent HN. I'll just talk about one of them because bias is a tough topic to talk rationally about. The one I want to discuss that I see a lot of hackers doing is creating a need to do everything themselves. This leads directly to the delusion that side projects are things to take Really Seriously. Sure, if I wanted to, I could chunk out all the work it takes to build a product, take it to the market, refine it, then finally build a company around it to take the load off. But unless you're a real honest-to-god genius, then you're going to make mistakes, and those mistakes can add months, or even years to the time when you can Call It Done and go back to spending the time with your wife and kids. If you're not absolutely strict about not letting it override your personal life, you will end up sacrificing your life to the jealous God of the Market. You might try to respond by moving the goalposts, saying that the real goal here is learning, not achieving some kind of outcome. But do I really need to ship a product to learn? There is a class of activity that is actively distrustful of the market, which insists that all learning comes from the creator's own mind. It's called art. If Picasso thought that the market was worth listening to, then we wouldn't know his name today. Artists by their nature listen to other artists, and not you. That's what makes it art. Side projects should be considered to be more art than business. Art doesn't fuck with your personal life. Art informs your personal life. Whether you're creating it or enjoying it. If I'm sitting there hacking out a weird new concept for accessing databases and my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife. I do not tell her that I'm currently in flow right now and jeez could you really just come back later after I'm taking care of this Really Important Thing. If you're bleeding your professional life so far into your personal life that you are even for a moment taking it more seriously than your wife and kids, you have fucked up your priorities. I would never ever ever even dream of doing this. Everything else is noise compared to my personal life.
- hutzlibu 10y ago
  "my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife. I do not tell her that I'm currently in flow right now" But can you listen patiently, if you have been in a flow before? I can't, even though I too often try to, to be polite, but I think I prefer being honest and stay in the flow, if I want to. And when I am done, I am free for other persons. But it takes good balance, true.
  - keithwhor 10y ago
    I can't. I've tried. I don't think it's necessarily messed up priorities. I think it's that some of us have obsessive compulsions to follow through on an idea or train of thought. I like to think I'm generally personable and hospitable, but I am a completely different person in the midst of a flow. I am abrupt and dismissive - not because I don't care, but because of an irrational urgency to put ink to paper. I often turn around, minutes (to even an hour) later, and dequeue every question or thing that was asked of me, one-by-one. I feel like it's physically painful for me to not work in this way. I can not give undivided attention when there's something that needs to get out, and am certainly jealous of people who can context switch out of a flow like it's nothing.
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      I mean, I think it's similar to going to the gym: no matter how much I care about what you have to say, you're never going to get above 75% attention if you interrupt me mid-workout. The blood is pumping, Im hopped up on hormones, etc. It's not even that I don't want to focus, it's that my body is geared for something else and cant switch instantly. Similarly, if I've been deeply focused, my brain has switched out normal, every day concerns for work material, my brain state is settled in to focus mode, etc. I spend hours a day (and have for years) teaching myself to focus on a large, abstract set of information in a particular state to attack problems. (It's actually a lot like visualization meditation -- to be able to hold a complex model of what you're working on in your head while you work.) Im not able to instantly turn it off, it takes time to switch out of that mode of thinking and to bring back the "normal" information. It has nothing to do with priorities -- context switching, particularly a mode switch, takes time.
COMPUTERLOSER 10y ago
Logs of Blogs of Blogs.
bobbington 10y ago
Good points for talk, but the former author was absolutely right. He had taken his obsession with new tech to the extreme and it was not helping him. I think that the author of the response makes good points for others, the author was absolutely correct in his assertion that he needs to focus on getting things done, because at the end of the day if you can't do that nothing else matters
martincmartin 10y ago
The author of "How to never complete anything" seems like he was procrastinating. Procrastination is a kind of mental habit that can be hard to counter by just telling yourself to not get distracted. Yelling at yourself "JUST. GET. SHIT. DONE." is not making a dispassionate decision "you know, I'd be happier if I got to the end on my next project, I think next time I'll bang it out quickly then assess what I've got." There are a lot of good books on procrastination. Meditation / introspection can help too. There are much more effective methods than just trying to "force yourself" to not get distracted / procrastinate.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  The basic first step in any attempt is simply... become aware of the problem. As you say, yelling at yourself is the opposite of figuring things out.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  In the middle of my desktop wallpaper I have the words "motivation is bullshit\nget it done". It's actually worked, every time I see it it reminds me of a video I watched that discussed motivation, it was a bit hoorah but the core message struck a note.
unlmtd 10y ago
> I think it’s time for you to have a vacation – a real vacation. Iv tried it all; sail without an engine, tan on beaches 5k miles away, buy all the sex workers (my) money could buy. None if it worked. The only true vacation for me is lysergic acid diethylamide, 250 to 500 micro grams.
- Jimpulse 10y ago
  Now how about trying all those activities on that dose!
  - tebura 10y ago
    lolol do u want him come back from vacation ever?
- M_Grey 10y ago
  That strikes me as a cry for help, if the only time you ever feel like you can be "on vacation" is when you're divorced from reality. Take acid all you like, but if you need it to feel relaxed... you're already in some very deep trouble and should seek help.
  - unlmtd 10y ago
    I do seek help, and LSD gives it to me. 'Reality' .. Ahahah! Quid est veritas?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
jacmoe 10y ago
Good advice, but loaded with assumptions that may or may not be true. The original article, and the response, are two views of the "problem" at opposite ends of the spectrum (so to speak). Depending on the context, both are right. And also wrong. ;_)
watwut 10y ago
I wonder whether current wave of must have side project is not result of people having non satisfying/challenging work.
klum 10y ago
Regarding the points in the beginning of the article: So in this case, as in every other one, the answer seems to be "balance" :). People tend to go for extremes as solutions to their problems... I'm guessing because extremes make for easy, clear answers. The thing is, the answer depends on where you are. For some people, adding discipline to their day is a good thing, for others, cutting themselves some slack is what's necessary. For some projects, adding some structure to the process would be a benefit, other projects may need to be more agile. And I'm not talking about different types of people and projects, just that depending on where you are, the correct advice is different, and not applicable to a person or project currently on the other end of the scale. This happens in every field: "train harder", "train less hard", "eat more carbs", "eat less carbs"... The tricky thing is that the optimal route is generally not at either extreme, but somewhere in the middle. I guess you learn to recognise the correct balance with experience (or guidance).
- nogenerix 10y ago
  I definitely fall prey to this extreme type of thinking. I consider it a form of naive idealism – believing there is always one maximally correct solution. This is why solutions such as Soylent are so appealing to me. Perhaps the cause is simply a lack of in-depth knowledge and experience in the areas for which I'm seeking a perfect solution, or maybe it's related to being on the spectrum.
  - agentgt 10y ago
    IMO has hackneyed as it is: It is experiences and maturity. I was of the same mind set for most of my 20s. As you get older (and hopefully I'm not false in assuming you are younger) family and bigger picture things come into play.
  - user5994461 10y ago
    There can be one significant optimal solution... in the context of one particular problem. Usually there are two which are not clear cut.
noir_lord 10y ago
You write beautifully.
- nogenerix 10y ago
  Agreed. Well crafted prose.
hyperpallium 10y ago
> “But done” – What is “done” in software? Yes, it's never really done, but there are levels or milestones of "doneness", where you get to feel the satisfaction of something done. Two ways of looking at "doneness": an end in itself, or as a means to an end. Professionals/craftmen/artisans prefer the former (and are prone to perfectionism - never reaching any level of perfect doneness); whereas business people are prone to cutting corners - cutting anything non-essential - in order to reach the end (and are prone to cutting the essential). Sidenote: it's great for a business for perfection to be hard to reach (and customers still wanting it), because it means you can release another version - when perfection is reached (or customers don't want any more), the business dies. Microsoft "wizards" were a good example of the a means to an end (don't know if they still are): they got the job done, if you wanted a common combination of selections. But was buggy for other combinations that should work. It looked like they only fixed the bugs that they had to. So... this is outrageous to a perfectionistic - of course all the combinations should work! My point is that this achieved the end, for most people. Each single combination of features or path that works is an element of "doneness", that actually helps someone. Richard Dawkins talks about the evolution of the human eye - how could such a complex interdependent thing come into existence spontaneously? He says it came bit by bit, from a patch of photosensitive cells, to a hollow of them, to a simple lens, gradually refining its focal qualities. A similar story for orchid mimickry of insects. (Chapter was called "Do Good by Stealth"). The point is that each advance had a level of "doneness", in that it was better than not having it (thus conferring survival advantage). And who's to say the advancement has ceased? One also have a level of doneness for the intrinsic beauty of the work itself... it's just that you are going to have to define what "doneness" will mean for you... and you'd better make each level very small in scope, because it takes a long time to make even a small thing beautiful or perfect. For example, just making a framework is a worthy and ambitious goal. Though I still think, even for "ends in themselves" it's useful to distinguish between what business people call "differentiating" factors and "hygiene" factors. You must have hygiene, but it doesn't have to be world-beating - just good enough to do the job. But for differentiating factors, you have to do something unusual or special (though again, only really good enough to differentiate). It's up to you to work out what "good enough" really means. I think comparing it with not having it at all is a good way to evaluate its worth without getting caught in an endless perfectionism trap...
andy_ppp 10y ago
I actually realised after watching the Drew Houston (Dropbox founder) interview [1] that the most important thing is working full time on your startup. There's too much for one person to do even if you are full time let alone working 7pm-3am every day. [1] https://blog.ycombinator.com/drew-houston-on-how-to-build-the-future/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/drew-houston-on-how-to-build-th...
metaphorm 10y ago
This was a really wonderful thing to read. I think it's extremely important for people to get this perspective, with its experience grounded in the realities of the work and the complexities of just being a human person.
combatentropy 10y ago
I wonder if the writer of the original article misunderstood the reason he started a side project. To me it sounded like he started it to have fun, to play with things, and to learn. Later he tacked on the goal of to make something for the world. Who feels guilty that their crossword puzzle or frisbee football or model airplane hobby has yet to yield a practical product, to sell to the rest of the world? Maybe we confuse our goals while software dabbling because software has the potential to be a product, while it's much harder to be tricked into thinking that our finished sudoku puzzle might somehow help mankind. I think it's helpful to first correctly identify your reasons for doing something, before you try to judge whether you are doing it well or should keep on doing it. For example, it helped me to identify that the real reason I check my email too often at work is because I was lonely, not just because I wanted to gain information or to give information to others. I think this is making it easier for me to stop checking email so often and to find other ways to fulfill my needs. As the writer of this response article indicates, writing software to learn or to play is a good enough reason in itself, and we need study and play for the same reason children do: to stretch ourselves. Or, more practically, it is a shortcut to pleasure. The commonly acknowledged pathway to pleasure is (1) work, (2) get paid, (3) buy something that makes you happy. But with play, the work itself makes you happy. No intermediate activity is required.

270 points by fvargas 10y ago

Basically I agree, but I think you can put it more simply: this is how we learn. 5 years into your career is a really short time. I know that people feel like they should be (or are) at the peak of their powers 5 years in, but that's kind of delusional. Running a big successful project should not be your goal (IMHO) that early on. I've got a couple of very long projects under my belt (none really successful), but I've learned dramatically more from my hundreds (or thousands) of aborted projects than I have from those ones that I stuck with for 5-7 years. Give yourself permission to play. It's important. If you have a long term, successful project, you will not have much time for play any more.

vinceguidry 10y ago

Very, very good reply, I'm glad I skipped past the unnecessary point-by-point at the beginning to get to the real meat of the reply. There are a few weird and irrational biases I see going on amongst techies who frequent HN. I'll just talk about one of them because bias is a tough topic to talk rationally about. The one I want to discuss that I see a lot of hackers doing is creating a need to do everything themselves. This leads directly to the delusion that side projects are things to take Really Seriously. Sure, if I wanted to, I could chunk out all the work it takes to build a product, take it to the market, refine it, then finally build a company around it to take the load off. But unless you're a real honest-to-god genius, then you're going to make mistakes, and those mistakes can add months, or even years to the time when you can Call It Done and go back to spending the time with your wife and kids. If you're not absolutely strict about not letting it override your personal life, you will end up sacrificing your life to the jealous God of the Market. You might try to respond by moving the goalposts, saying that the real goal here is learning, not achieving some kind of outcome. But do I really need to ship a product to learn? There is a class of activity that is actively distrustful of the market, which insists that all learning comes from the creator's own mind. It's called art. If Picasso thought that the market was worth listening to, then we wouldn't know his name today. Artists by their nature listen to other artists, and not you. That's what makes it art. Side projects should be considered to be more art than business. Art doesn't fuck with your personal life. Art informs your personal life. Whether you're creating it or enjoying it. If I'm sitting there hacking out a weird new concept for accessing databases and my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife. I do not tell her that I'm currently in flow right now and jeez could you really just come back later after I'm taking care of this Really Important Thing. If you're bleeding your professional life so far into your personal life that you are even for a moment taking it more seriously than your wife and kids, you have fucked up your priorities. I would never ever ever even dream of doing this. Everything else is noise compared to my personal life.

hutzlibu 10y ago
"my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife. I do not tell her that I'm currently in flow right now" But can you listen patiently, if you have been in a flow before? I can't, even though I too often try to, to be polite, but I think I prefer being honest and stay in the flow, if I want to. And when I am done, I am free for other persons. But it takes good balance, true.
- keithwhor 10y ago
  I can't. I've tried. I don't think it's necessarily messed up priorities. I think it's that some of us have obsessive compulsions to follow through on an idea or train of thought. I like to think I'm generally personable and hospitable, but I am a completely different person in the midst of a flow. I am abrupt and dismissive - not because I don't care, but because of an irrational urgency to put ink to paper. I often turn around, minutes (to even an hour) later, and dequeue every question or thing that was asked of me, one-by-one. I feel like it's physically painful for me to not work in this way. I can not give undivided attention when there's something that needs to get out, and am certainly jealous of people who can context switch out of a flow like it's nothing.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    I mean, I think it's similar to going to the gym: no matter how much I care about what you have to say, you're never going to get above 75% attention if you interrupt me mid-workout. The blood is pumping, Im hopped up on hormones, etc. It's not even that I don't want to focus, it's that my body is geared for something else and cant switch instantly. Similarly, if I've been deeply focused, my brain has switched out normal, every day concerns for work material, my brain state is settled in to focus mode, etc. I spend hours a day (and have for years) teaching myself to focus on a large, abstract set of information in a particular state to attack problems. (It's actually a lot like visualization meditation -- to be able to hold a complex model of what you're working on in your head while you work.) Im not able to instantly turn it off, it takes time to switch out of that mode of thinking and to bring back the "normal" information. It has nothing to do with priorities -- context switching, particularly a mode switch, takes time.

COMPUTERLOSER 10y ago

Logs of Blogs of Blogs.

bobbington 10y ago

Good points for talk, but the former author was absolutely right. He had taken his obsession with new tech to the extreme and it was not helping him. I think that the author of the response makes good points for others, the author was absolutely correct in his assertion that he needs to focus on getting things done, because at the end of the day if you can't do that nothing else matters

martincmartin 10y ago

The author of "How to never complete anything" seems like he was procrastinating. Procrastination is a kind of mental habit that can be hard to counter by just telling yourself to not get distracted. Yelling at yourself "JUST. GET. SHIT. DONE." is not making a dispassionate decision "you know, I'd be happier if I got to the end on my next project, I think next time I'll bang it out quickly then assess what I've got." There are a lot of good books on procrastination. Meditation / introspection can help too. There are much more effective methods than just trying to "force yourself" to not get distracted / procrastinate.

M_Grey 10y ago
The basic first step in any attempt is simply... become aware of the problem. As you say, yelling at yourself is the opposite of figuring things out.
noir_lord 10y ago
In the middle of my desktop wallpaper I have the words "motivation is bullshit\nget it done". It's actually worked, every time I see it it reminds me of a video I watched that discussed motivation, it was a bit hoorah but the core message struck a note.

unlmtd 10y ago

> I think it’s time for you to have a vacation – a real vacation. Iv tried it all; sail without an engine, tan on beaches 5k miles away, buy all the sex workers (my) money could buy. None if it worked. The only true vacation for me is lysergic acid diethylamide, 250 to 500 micro grams.

Jimpulse 10y ago
Now how about trying all those activities on that dose!
- tebura 10y ago
  lolol do u want him come back from vacation ever?
M_Grey 10y ago
That strikes me as a cry for help, if the only time you ever feel like you can be "on vacation" is when you're divorced from reality. Take acid all you like, but if you need it to feel relaxed... you're already in some very deep trouble and should seek help.
- unlmtd 10y ago
  I do seek help, and LSD gives it to me. 'Reality' .. Ahahah! Quid est veritas?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

jacmoe 10y ago

Good advice, but loaded with assumptions that may or may not be true. The original article, and the response, are two views of the "problem" at opposite ends of the spectrum (so to speak). Depending on the context, both are right. And also wrong. ;_)

watwut 10y ago

I wonder whether current wave of must have side project is not result of people having non satisfying/challenging work.

klum 10y ago

Regarding the points in the beginning of the article: So in this case, as in every other one, the answer seems to be "balance" :). People tend to go for extremes as solutions to their problems... I'm guessing because extremes make for easy, clear answers. The thing is, the answer depends on where you are. For some people, adding discipline to their day is a good thing, for others, cutting themselves some slack is what's necessary. For some projects, adding some structure to the process would be a benefit, other projects may need to be more agile. And I'm not talking about different types of people and projects, just that depending on where you are, the correct advice is different, and not applicable to a person or project currently on the other end of the scale. This happens in every field: "train harder", "train less hard", "eat more carbs", "eat less carbs"... The tricky thing is that the optimal route is generally not at either extreme, but somewhere in the middle. I guess you learn to recognise the correct balance with experience (or guidance).

nogenerix 10y ago
I definitely fall prey to this extreme type of thinking. I consider it a form of naive idealism – believing there is always one maximally correct solution. This is why solutions such as Soylent are so appealing to me. Perhaps the cause is simply a lack of in-depth knowledge and experience in the areas for which I'm seeking a perfect solution, or maybe it's related to being on the spectrum.
- agentgt 10y ago
  IMO has hackneyed as it is: It is experiences and maturity. I was of the same mind set for most of my 20s. As you get older (and hopefully I'm not false in assuming you are younger) family and bigger picture things come into play.
- user5994461 10y ago
  There can be one significant optimal solution... in the context of one particular problem. Usually there are two which are not clear cut.

noir_lord 10y ago

You write beautifully.

nogenerix 10y ago
Agreed. Well crafted prose.

hyperpallium 10y ago

> “But done” – What is “done” in software? Yes, it's never really done, but there are levels or milestones of "doneness", where you get to feel the satisfaction of something done. Two ways of looking at "doneness": an end in itself, or as a means to an end. Professionals/craftmen/artisans prefer the former (and are prone to perfectionism - never reaching any level of perfect doneness); whereas business people are prone to cutting corners - cutting anything non-essential - in order to reach the end (and are prone to cutting the essential). Sidenote: it's great for a business for perfection to be hard to reach (and customers still wanting it), because it means you can release another version - when perfection is reached (or customers don't want any more), the business dies. Microsoft "wizards" were a good example of the a means to an end (don't know if they still are): they got the job done, if you wanted a common combination of selections. But was buggy for other combinations that should work. It looked like they only fixed the bugs that they had to. So... this is outrageous to a perfectionistic - of course all the combinations should work! My point is that this achieved the end, for most people. Each single combination of features or path that works is an element of "doneness", that actually helps someone. Richard Dawkins talks about the evolution of the human eye - how could such a complex interdependent thing come into existence spontaneously? He says it came bit by bit, from a patch of photosensitive cells, to a hollow of them, to a simple lens, gradually refining its focal qualities. A similar story for orchid mimickry of insects. (Chapter was called "Do Good by Stealth"). The point is that each advance had a level of "doneness", in that it was better than not having it (thus conferring survival advantage). And who's to say the advancement has ceased? One also have a level of doneness for the intrinsic beauty of the work itself... it's just that you are going to have to define what "doneness" will mean for you... and you'd better make each level very small in scope, because it takes a long time to make even a small thing beautiful or perfect. For example, just making a framework is a worthy and ambitious goal. Though I still think, even for "ends in themselves" it's useful to distinguish between what business people call "differentiating" factors and "hygiene" factors. You must have hygiene, but it doesn't have to be world-beating - just good enough to do the job. But for differentiating factors, you have to do something unusual or special (though again, only really good enough to differentiate). It's up to you to work out what "good enough" really means. I think comparing it with not having it at all is a good way to evaluate its worth without getting caught in an endless perfectionism trap...

andy_ppp 10y ago

I actually realised after watching the Drew Houston (Dropbox founder) interview [1] that the most important thing is working full time on your startup. There's too much for one person to do even if you are full time let alone working 7pm-3am every day. [1] https://blog.ycombinator.com/drew-houston-on-how-to-build-the-future/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/drew-houston-on-how-to-build-th...

metaphorm 10y ago

This was a really wonderful thing to read. I think it's extremely important for people to get this perspective, with its experience grounded in the realities of the work and the complexities of just being a human person.

combatentropy 10y ago

I wonder if the writer of the original article misunderstood the reason he started a side project. To me it sounded like he started it to have fun, to play with things, and to learn. Later he tacked on the goal of to make something for the world. Who feels guilty that their crossword puzzle or frisbee football or model airplane hobby has yet to yield a practical product, to sell to the rest of the world? Maybe we confuse our goals while software dabbling because software has the potential to be a product, while it's much harder to be tricked into thinking that our finished sudoku puzzle might somehow help mankind. I think it's helpful to first correctly identify your reasons for doing something, before you try to judge whether you are doing it well or should keep on doing it. For example, it helped me to identify that the real reason I check my email too often at work is because I was lonely, not just because I wanted to gain information or to give information to others. I think this is making it easier for me to stop checking email so often and to find other ways to fulfill my needs. As the writer of this response article indicates, writing software to learn or to play is a good enough reason in itself, and we need study and play for the same reason children do: to stretch ourselves. Or, more practically, it is a shortcut to pleasure. The commonly acknowledged pathway to pleasure is (1) work, (2) get paid, (3) buy something that makes you happy. But with play, the work itself makes you happy. No intermediate activity is required.