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First, I'm easily distracted. But, the real issue in working on something, for myself, that is engaging, and pushing back the "WTH are you wasting time on this

• jddj 3y ago
  I'm sure you've already heard/read it said a bunch of times, but you shipped a thing out there. The vast majority of people/projects don't. You probably actually enjoyed it too, just not the whole time. That's fine, that's the treadmill.
• packetlost 3y ago
  Same boat here. I've yet to find something that I feel warrants full attention. It's sort of opposite to the common SV "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" attitude. Maybe I'm just too distractable and pessimistic.
  • ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    I have a very definite demographic that I understand very well (being in it, myself), and write software to Serve it. Problem is, no money. I don’t mind, really. But I treat every one of my free, open-source (or proprietary) projects as if I am delivering for a Fortune 50 corporation. Lots of boring bits, but the results speak for themselves. There was a Show HN, some time ago, where someone made a Web site that cataloged existing markets, with insufficient software. It was a good idea, but not for me. I like to be heavily invested in the use cases for my work.
    • hyling 3y ago
      I'd love to find that Show HN post. Any help would be much appreciated. I've search for it using a variety of keywords but still can't find it.
      • ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
        Well, my C. R. S. is kicking in, so I can't remember that well, but the gist was that it scanned ratings sites. I'm not sure if it was just app stores, or also included things like Amazon. It looked for products with a lot of ratings and mediocre levels, which indicated a market that wasn't being satisfied. The middle of the bell curve would be an app that had 10,000 3-star ratings. This excluded products being "hate-bombed," and ones being "gamed." It suggested using the list as a starting point for finding poorly-served markets. It was fairly clever.
        • hyling 3y ago
          Thanks for the details! That's a cool idea. Were you thinking of this one? It was posted 10 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5680011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5680011
          • ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
            I haven't been on that long, but it may have been reposted.
• ekanes 3y ago
  Your scenario makes me think of The Lean Startup. It's a book but you can find podcasts, talks, etc. It's worth thoroughly understanding it as it makes it much harder to ship something people don't want, but also pushes you to engage with people earlier so you're co-building. I'm also older :P and this is the biggest idea to change my approach to this game.
• soupfordummies 3y ago
  What’s the project? Can you share it here?
  • whartung 3y ago
    https://github.com/willhartung/planet/releases/tag/v1.0.0 https://github.com/willhartung/planet/releases/tag/v1.0.0 It's a "simple" GUI wrapper around a fractal planet generator (that I did not create). I'm not very good at GUIs. I don't have the visual eye, I'm lousy at detail. 99% of the time I'm happy with something that spits out the answer I want awash in a sea of debug logs and printlns. I have a great tolerance to ignoring all of that. I bogged down on the installers because I loathe configuring build tools, hunting down plugins, tweaking configurations. It ended up as 4000 lines of code just for the GUI part, which seemed surprising. But that's the nature of it. GUIs are just heaps and gobs of detail, and events, and wiring it all up. But I did it, it's "done", even if imperfect, even if the box has rounded corners as I shoved it into the outbox. And its got all sorts of things I wouldn't do again, which is useful. Getting it out was like an interview with Columbo, always "one more thing". One of my "last minute" changes took me a month. I was considering doing a YT video (or series) just going through this thing. Seems small enough, but addresses "real problems", rather than just examples, maybe there's value seeing it all together. Some examples of, perhaps, what "not to do". Share and enjoy!
    • dragosmocrii 3y ago
      Congrats! That's a nice project and great effort that I'm sure taught you plenty of stuff while doing it.
• c7DJTLrn 3y ago
  >But, the real issue in working on something, for myself, that is engaging, and pushing back the "WTH are you wasting time on this for?". It's all very fleeting. Similar for me. I'm generating and validating ideas at the moment, but it takes almost no time for me to convince myself an idea is rubbish, not worth exploring, or already done.
  • actionfromafar 3y ago
    You probably already heard this, but if you are doing a product, not “research”, that something has been already done, needn’t be a deterrent. It just as well may indicate there’s room in the market for yet another twist on a similar thing.
    • SoftTalker 3y ago
      In fact if something like it is already in the market, that's a very good sign. It validates that there is a market.
  • sph 3y ago
    The way I frame it, is that practically any business idea is viable. It doesn't have to be novel, or world-changing, unless your goal is to create a multi-billion dollar monopoly on day 1. There is space for more than one thing in the world. The difference between a successful business and a failed startup is how much effort you put into it, considering that a solo or a startup is exponentially more nimble than an established player at identifying and focusing on a novel approach to an old problem. The classic Silicon Valley/Paul Graham advice of "validate an idea and don't write a line of code until you have signed 10 clients" is a good approach only iff your job is creating ideas and putting the least possible effort in each one. This is the Twitter indiehacker approach. But if you only have one good idea that you believe in, that scratches your own itch, just build it. Don't spend ages to build it, try to market it ASAP, but how much effort you put into it is more important than how game changing your idea is. This is my plan at least, and no successful business just yet to say if this approach is valid, but it agrees with my reading of the business, indie hacker and startup world. Just don't create another productivity app. That's the most saturated field in the entire space, and for some reason 90% of indie hackers have built yet another calendar/todo hybrid, wondering why no one cares.
• elwell 3y ago
  I feel like I would be more motivated if I were to work on something that helps people. Making money is fun at times, but (especially as a Christian) I can't ignore that voice that selfish gain is mostly meaningless.
  • whartung 3y ago
    You don't have to save the world or feed the hungry to help other people. Just sharing your knowledge can be a hand up to someone in a bind, even a complete stranger on the internet who doesn't even give out an upvote. Everyone's gifts are different, and none of them are universal.
• gagege 3y ago
  I have the same problem. I see all these hackers out there making (something like) the millionth travel blog and sticking with it for years and somehow ending up making a decent income off of it. But I'm sitting here wondering if my potentially cool game idea that has never been done before is something that the world really needs, then I quit after about a week because of those thoughts. What drives people?
  • Jarwain 3y ago
    Would working on it bring you joy? Because the world could certainly use more of that :D I personally lean on people to help stay motivated. For your example, I would find a game dev meet up or some discord community, talk shop & share what I'm working on on a regular basis. Validate or give feedback on the work of others, and get some of my own. It's a process of constantly pushing back the thoughts and community makes it easier
  • ChadNauseam 3y ago
    I think they write the travel blog because they enjoy it. Most people aren’t doing things like that because they think the world “needs” more of it
  • Aurornis 3y ago
    I went through a phase of following a lot of “indie hacker” people on Twitter when everyone was posting their growth numbers and other stats in public. It was fun to watch them try different things and experiment. Then slowly, nearly all of them stopped. Some got jobs at big companies. Others quietly stopped posting after numbers flatlined or declined. This includes a lot of people whose projects were “Ramen profitable” and then showing huge month over month growth, which was supposed to be the start of something bigger. A disappointing number of them have pivoted into personal brand building and selling courses. It’s a lot of “follow me/subscribe to my newsletter for more advice” which turns into “sign up now for an exclusive spot in my new course” after a half a year. It’s like a switch flips after a certain number of followers where they realize it’s going to be easier to sell courses/content than to build their project into a successful company.
• j7ake 3y ago
  Covid really pushed my mental state into “why bother” and I realised how easily I can spiral out of control into doom scrolling and gaming. Loss of structure can be devastating to productive habits.
• sph 3y ago
  Thanks, it helps to see that I'm not the only one struggling. I've been building a business solo over the past year, reached 80% in late spring, ready to a closed invite launch and... lost all motivation. Between the fear of seeing savings go down without anything to show for it, the utterly demoralising job market during which it took 6+ months to get one solid freelance opportunity, and the constant nag that I am wasting my time and should just find a job like a normal person... meant that I completely lost steam, just staying afloat with a good freelance client, shelving the business idea for months. Only a couple weeks ago, after seeing that my financial situation isn't getting better, and I still am allergic to a regular job, I managed to overcome the massive inertia and got back riding the wave of launching a business. I adore the freedom of working for myself, the challenge, but until I start seeing good money coming in, I'll always believe I am wasting my time and following fanciful ideas instead of just going back to trying to win the interview lottery and working for someone else on something I don't care about. It's hard.
  • gwervc 3y ago
    I can relate being allergic to day job: I have one and hate the lack of freedom that come with it (in addition to it not being interesting). Doing it has a few expected advantages such as a regular paycheck and healthcare. One unexpected advantage however is how it motivates me to work on my side project so I can change life eventually. On a motivated day I can work as much a full day of work (7h), most of the time I'm spending a couple of hours on it. Everyday (mostly). I find it easier to be consistent by having a day job that firces me to wake up in the morning than when I have a full empty schedule.
    • sph 3y ago
      Personally I am more of a sprinter, and currently my target is 4-5 hours of max intensity work in the morning, with free afternoons, 6 or 7 days a week. No distractions, no social media, no people around, avoiding browsing the internet for fun from waking up to 1pm. Free afternoons feel like every day is a holiday that can be filled with whatever I fancy, though sometimes morning work motivates me so much I might do more work in the afternoon. I might need to pace myself, like that Hemingway quote in TFA. It is incredible how productive one can be with just 20h of consistent work a week, with no bosses or bullshit meetings. I'm still working on the consistency part :)
• matheusmoreira 3y ago
  I know how you feel. Persevering is a real challenge. It takes a huge amount of effort just to start work. It's easier when I get going. After getting something done, there's this feeling of accomplishment but also pointlessness and loneliness. I ask myself why I'm even writing this stuff. Will anyone care? I suppose I should do a Show HN at some point and find out.