There is a similar trajectory in what you choose to build. In stage 1 you write programs that are conspicuously missing features; in stage 2 you write programs

There is a similar trajectory in what you choose to build. In stage 1 you write programs that are conspicuously missing features; in stage 2 you write programs that have too many features (and yet may still be missing some important ones); in stage 3 you write programs that do exactly what's needed. My experience suggests that one good way to speed the transition to stage 3 is to try to make your programs short. When I was writing On Lisp I spent a lot of time working on programs that had to be short enough to be reproduced in the book, and this cured me of the tendency to pile on features. Rtm's example probably helped too. His source code is as laconic as he is in person.