4 ms·

Ask HN: No intrinisic motivation to build stuff

33 points by twink 15y ago

Dear HN crowd, I'm not particularly happy in my life. My main problem is lack of intrinsic motivation to create stuff, in the widest sense. For example, I don't contribute to open source projects. I don't have any own programming projects. I don't have a personal web site or a blog. I'm not a member of a political party trying to change the world. I find the start-up scene thrilling, but as long as I don't change, I will probably never be part of it. I think the underlying problem is that it's quite easy for me to find things that interest me, but very hard not to get bored after a day. For example, think about topics like lock picking, composing electronic music, web development, functional programming languages, [insert random technology here], etc. As soon as I understand the basics of X, I lose interest. After I had managed to open a very simple lock, I stopped practicing. After I had roughly figured out what the knobs on a synthesizer do, I stopped trying to make electronic music. After I understood which technologies are required to build and deploy a modern web site and how to get a basic "hello world" running, I stopped building web sites. After a few hours of "Learn you a Haskell for Great Good" and seeing the main differences to other programming paradigms, I stopped reading (same for the Erlang equivalent). I've had a look at so many different programming languages in my life, but after I understand syntax and basic design principles, I lose the motivation to actually build something with it. As such, I have no chance to become an expert in a particular field. It's frustrating. I perform very well at university, though. It's easy to see what you have to do to get the reward (a good grade), so I do just that. Actually, (graded) university projects are the only projects I've finished in my life. Why do I need grades to motivate me? What the fuck does optimizing for good grades matter, while others actually do and learn useful stuff in their free time? Why don't I feel the urge to build kick-ass stuff, while so many people here do? Why can't I stay focussed on a single thing without external pressure (grades)? I'm close to graduation now. I could know far more than I do, if I had learned past what is required for getting an A. Something needs to change. I already see myself decaying at $BIG-CO, the monthly pay-check as my only reward. But what other option is there, without any passion. PS: HN is very inspiring for me, though. My brain loves the rush of information. It's typical for me to open 40-something tabs of news stories, just to skim through them, without reading a single one in detail: Read the introduction, read the conclusion, close tab, read top HN comments. Understand what it is about and what smart people think about the subject. Then go to next story, repeat. Maybe it's ADHD. Medication (stimulants) did not really help, though.

billswift 15y ago
I think the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is grossly overblown, especially for getting stuff done. You might notice that all of the research (at least all of it I have seen reports of) uses very short term operations, things that can be done in minutes, or hours at the most, to show the contrast. I do not think intrinsic motivation can be maintained without something outside of itself to keep it focused. I don't think it an accident that nearly all advances in knowledge (explicit or process) comes from academia with its obsessive status games or from for-profit businesses with the need to make money. I have mostly used work to help maintain my focus over the years. While most of my projects were not directly part of my job, I used the requirements of my jobs (and expected jobs) to guide my learning from project to project, for some continuity. Those that were not related to work were a lot more scattershot. ADDED: Before someone brings up examples of people who weren't currently academics contributing to science, like Einstein writing papers while he was a patent clerk, there is no reason to go through the extra effort to write up results into publishable papers (which is a lot of work) if you are not aiming for something more than the sheer joy of discovery.
solarmist 15y ago
It seems to me that you're problem isn't that you don't have motivation it's that you need rewards right ways. I used to be the same way. Learning a few tricks in each of those areas gives you a thrill, but once that thrill wears off you lose interest and go off to find your next thrill. Grades are just a slightly longer term reward. You work hard for a few weeks or a month then you get rewarded with an A or a B. Instead of beating yourself up over these things you need to find a way to "reward" learning something in more depth. Discipline isn't forcing yourself to do something it's more like tricking yourself into doing it until it's second nature and that's what you naturally do. For example, surround yourself with Haskell materials and environments to the exclusion of all else AND have set up some kind of reward system for yourself. Or removing junkfood from your house in order to get hungry. If you're hungry and search the house for a snack and all you have are salads or pre-cooked chicken breasts then odds are you aren't going to go to the trouble to leave the house to find something else, you'll just eat what you have. Basically you need to find a way to make delayed gratification more gratifying to you than instant or short term gratification. Follow the example of Khan Academy. They use game mechanics to keep people coming back. Do the same for things you want to study. The other thing to realize is that at some point you need to commit to a path and ignore everything that's not applicable to that path. You can't be know everything. If you want to be a PHP developer don't go off and read a book about embedded C programming. It's outside of your area.

33 points by twink 15y ago

billswift 15y ago

I think the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is grossly overblown, especially for getting stuff done. You might notice that all of the research (at least all of it I have seen reports of) uses very short term operations, things that can be done in minutes, or hours at the most, to show the contrast. I do not think intrinsic motivation can be maintained without something outside of itself to keep it focused. I don't think it an accident that nearly all advances in knowledge (explicit or process) comes from academia with its obsessive status games or from for-profit businesses with the need to make money. I have mostly used work to help maintain my focus over the years. While most of my projects were not directly part of my job, I used the requirements of my jobs (and expected jobs) to guide my learning from project to project, for some continuity. Those that were not related to work were a lot more scattershot. ADDED: Before someone brings up examples of people who weren't currently academics contributing to science, like Einstein writing papers while he was a patent clerk, there is no reason to go through the extra effort to write up results into publishable papers (which is a lot of work) if you are not aiming for something more than the sheer joy of discovery.

solarmist 15y ago

It seems to me that you're problem isn't that you don't have motivation it's that you need rewards right ways. I used to be the same way. Learning a few tricks in each of those areas gives you a thrill, but once that thrill wears off you lose interest and go off to find your next thrill. Grades are just a slightly longer term reward. You work hard for a few weeks or a month then you get rewarded with an A or a B. Instead of beating yourself up over these things you need to find a way to "reward" learning something in more depth. Discipline isn't forcing yourself to do something it's more like tricking yourself into doing it until it's second nature and that's what you naturally do. For example, surround yourself with Haskell materials and environments to the exclusion of all else AND have set up some kind of reward system for yourself. Or removing junkfood from your house in order to get hungry. If you're hungry and search the house for a snack and all you have are salads or pre-cooked chicken breasts then odds are you aren't going to go to the trouble to leave the house to find something else, you'll just eat what you have. Basically you need to find a way to make delayed gratification more gratifying to you than instant or short term gratification. Follow the example of Khan Academy. They use game mechanics to keep people coming back. Do the same for things you want to study. The other thing to realize is that at some point you need to commit to a path and ignore everything that's not applicable to that path. You can't be know everything. If you want to be a PHP developer don't go off and read a book about embedded C programming. It's outside of your area.