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Managing my motivation as a solo dev

336 points by marcusbuffett 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
satvikpendem 2y ago
Great article and tips. I've heard all of these before separately of course but having them all in one article makes it nice. As I was reading each one, I thought, these all sound like solutions (or at least helpful tips) I've heard for people who have ADHD, and lo and behold, I see the last section.
- mey 2y ago
  I wish the tip at the end was, seek treatment for ADD/ADHD, or any other issues that impact your quality of life. It isn't a failure to do so and can make things better in the long run.
  - marcusbuffett 2y ago
    The only real treatment for ADHD is to medicate, and I’ve seen some studies that show your brain creates more dopamine pathways (forget the actual term, but basically more efficient at getting rid of dopamine) over time, which means that if I were to go off the medication, I’m potentially worse off than before. That seems too high of a cost. I have tried it before though, it certainly works.
Zambyte 2y ago
I think these tips are really helpful for me working on a team but remotely also.
tnolet 2y ago
Sounds very familiar. Was a solo dev for at least 2 years before being able to form a team around my product. One nit, one confirm: - I don't agree with the guiltiness on zero days. There is just no way to stay sane if you don't truly enjoy zero days. You will burn your candle. - I 1000% agree that any form of customer validation makes your day. Could be a Stripe ping, a mention on Twitter or here. Set up services like https://f5bot.com/ https://f5bot.com/. Google alerts is useless. My totally failed / crickets initial launch here on HN is findable via submissions in my bio, anno 2018. Three upvotes.
- dewey 2y ago
  Another great service for mentions is https://syften.com/ https://syften.com/, also supports Twitter but is paid.
  - marcusbuffett 2y ago
    This is the one I use, should have mentioned in the article
  - tnolet 2y ago
    Yeah. We use that too now but still have my F5 account going
- marcusbuffett 2y ago
  Yeah there’s some nuance to the zero days thing. If it’s a day I’ve already set aside that’s fine, but I’ve found myself unable to decide in the moment “not feeling it today, this will be a zero day”, and be okay with that emotionally. Unless I’ve shipped a massive feature recently or something, then it’s okay. Motivation is a mess, is what I’m getting at :) Haha I share in your frustration with the crickets launch, anything I post here that I actually care about people seeing, gets shuttled off to the shadow realm, then stuff like this that’s just musing tends to hit the front page.
  - alex_suzuki 2y ago
    For what it’s worth, I feel the exact same way about zero days. Intellectually I know I deserve them, but something inside me just refuses to stop thinking “I need to work now” until I’ve had some kind of “minimum viable productivity” to show. But interestingly as soon as I do, I can absolutely disconnect.
  - anyfoo 2y ago
    Yeah, I know that feeling well. The day after completing a massive thing, I'm super happy to have a zero day, and just enjoy the feeling of having accomplished something big. Other days, not so much.
  - 2y ago
pizzalife 2y ago
This reminds me of when me and some friends were selling "IRC bouncers" aka IRC VPNs around 2005. Whenever we got a new customer ($1 SMS payment) there would be an automatic announcement in our internal IRC channel. Even though it wasn't a lot of money, it was a very rewarding feeling.
thesurlydev 2y ago
Thanks for sharing. I especially liked the leaving tasks 90% done. This is motivation for someone who has 1000 unfinished side projects to finish one tomorrow :)
- alex_suzuki 2y ago
  I found that one interesting too. I do something similar but different: I keep a bunch of “warmup tasks” around, basically easy, low-risk (usually coding) tasks that are 90% likely to be quick motivational boosts to get started in the morning. NGL this has occasionally backfired and something simple turned out to be not so simple at all :-)
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    > NGL this has occasionally backfired and something simple turned out to be not so simple at all :-) In my case it often backfires in the form of a sudden decision, right or wrong, that yesterday-me made a bunch of bad decisions about something so they all need to be revisited. Before I know it, the thing that was 90% complete is now 60% complete.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  > I try to leave a task 90% finished at the end of a working session. It feels slightly worse than closing out the work, but it makes starting the next day 10x easier. Yeah, this one works incredibly well for me as well, and wasn't at all obvious until I saw it for the first time a few years ago.
Xeamek 2y ago
The 'leave things undone' tip sounds really good, definitely will try.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  I never liked it because I like to go home without any nagging problems, and intentionally not think about work until the next day. It's not always possible, but I try to wrap up loose ends to the extent possible by the end of each day.
  - ed 2y ago
    Personally I try to finish a feature, but leave QA for the morning. This way my first task is “copy and paste this command into terminal” or “use X feature in the app.” Because there’s always something that needs tweaking before it’s really done, this naturally pulls me into flow the next day. It’s a great trick!
  - VBprogrammer 2y ago
    Leaving yourself a clear idea of what is next to do would be similarly effective IMHO. Finish the task you are on then open up the next task, maybe open up the right file in your editor then log off for the evening.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      Yes, I just meant I like to leave work feeling like I've reached a "natural" stopping point. Something finished, or at least the path to finishing is clear. What I dislike is when I'm stumped, puzzling over a bug or the correct implementation for a complicated feature. It's not always possible to resolve these situations by the end of the work day and they tend to nag at me through the evening. I don't like that and try to avoid it, rather than deliberately create this feeling ("leave things undone") as some sort of trick for motivation.
    - bfuller 2y ago
      One of my professors would always leave his pc set to the last move of klondike so he would return to work every day with a "win"
ezekg 2y ago
> Leave tasks unfinished I also do this. I learned that if I leave a failing test for myself in the morning, I'll think about it on and off and jump right in next session without wasting time on HN or YT for an hour or 2 in the mornings. Sometimes this ends up causing me to work a little bit late, trying to make sure I actually have a failing test written for the problem (sometimes I have an issue without an accompanying test yet), but it's worth the extra effort/time. A failing test gives me something 100% actionable to jump into in the morning, as opposed to leaving e.g. a feature half written which can have an ambiguous starting point in terms of jumping back into it. I can't recommend this enough.
- marcusbuffett 2y ago
  I love this, I’m going to start doing this. It’ll help me actually start writing tests too lol
- tnolet 2y ago
  I was super in the other camp. Could not sleep if something wasn’t finished. Especially for coding. For marketing I found a (good) blog post can take a couple of days.
  - ezekg 2y ago
    I ebb and flow. Sometimes the failed test consumes me and I end up staying up late after the family goes to bed to solve it. :) It kind of flows into the author's other point, "if I’ve got it, use it."
  - unshavedyak 2y ago
    I'm similar, but for me it's i can't sleep if i don't understand the issue. Once i understand it enough that i've either fixed it in my head, or i'm confident i can fix it with the available knowledge, then it doesn't bother me. "Understand it in my head" is often a good stopping point too. Because if i actually go and fix it, i may find out i was wrong and spend even more time re-analyzing the issue to reach a new understanding.
maddynator 2y ago
Does anyone knows if there are any instructions on how do you configure the money bot?
- marcusbuffett 2y ago
  Basically just setup a discord webhook, and most languages will have a discord client you can use. Just when you get a subscription webhook event from stripe/apple/google, send a notification to that webhook
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
oglop 2y ago
Step one; log on Step two; feel sad Step three; hate your life choices Step 4 repeat
- meiraleal 2y ago
  Isn't this exactly what motivates people to quit corporate life and become a solo dev?
hamasho 2y ago
Thanks for the tip! I'll try leaving a task unfinished to start the next day with a small win. As a remote dev, I struggle to be productive all day. My company trusts me and gives me lots of flexibility, which sometimes allows me to procrastinate for days, leading to self-blaming and anxiety. I know starting the day in a good mood makes the rest of the day easier. Kicking off with a small victory definitely helps my productivity!
ravenstine 2y ago
While I'm not exactly sure what "solo dev" means for the author in terms of intent, I believe that the need to manage motivation is usually a sign that what one is doing is at least somewhat off-course from the ideal of the individual. In simpler terms, if you are struggling to be motivated for something, you can certainly try to change yourself, but it can be at least as reasonable to change that something. I learned this about myself a few years ago when I quit my job to build a compact piece of wearable hardware that measures metabolism through breath in real time. Even though I was burning through my savings, I spent close to a year working on this thing day in and day out. I had so many different "responsibilities" on my project and so many things to learn that motivation was never an issue, and I did finish a working device in the end. This is coming from someone who has dealt with motivational issues many times. That also wasn't the first time I quit my job to work on a project, though previous projects often ended early when I lost the motivation. At first, I thought this was a sign of a problem with myself, but in retrospect I think it's good that I lost motivation. Those ideas weren't that great and I wasn't as engaged in them, and it's likely I just would have wasted more time and money on them had I not acknowledged the writing on the wall. In fairness, this outlook is easy to have when you aren't doing something for income. To some extent, we do have to manage motivation for day jobs. I can't honestly say that I'd be coding enterprise applications if I wasn't getting paid handsomely to do that. Even though I am paid, part of motivation is having a mission that's important to you, and it's easy to lose sight of your mission if you've been paid a regular salary for quite some time. The author's "leave tasks unfinished" strategy plays into this principle at a very small level, but I think recognizing a greater ambition and keeping it in your consciousness can be important as well. A lot of people find the motivation to work harder and longer when they have kids, for instance. Since I don't have kids, I've found that regularly coming back to investing and retirement planning has been a good motivator for my day job because I get enjoyment out of making my money work for me; I loosely visualize what I want my life to be like in 20 years from now and strategize how to get there based on my current trajectory. I don't think about it most days, but revisiting this every few weeks reminds me why my day job is important. For others, perhaps owning a house and converting the garage to an art studio would be a goal to motivate one through their day job. In short, I think motivation is more a form of measure than a virtue in and of itself. It can tell you whether you've lost sight of ambition or if what you're doing just isn't that great. "Hacks" will only get you so far. That said, a "hack" that works for me is to just keep reminding myself to "keep up the pace." Even if I barely accomplish anything in a day, as long as I accomplish a minuscule thing on a daily basis, my frequency of accomplishment stays roughly the same. Going too long not really getting anything done is when motivating yourself to jump back in the game gets very difficult.
_f9cu 2y ago
I pick weights over my head. It strenghthens the inner voice stronger, and it tells me, this gives me stronger mind voice, calm pace. slow and steady
marginalia_nu 2y ago
IMO one shouldn't rely on motivation to do things. You don't need to be motivated to do things. You can do things even though they suck. There'll be good days when motivation is there to cheer you on, but that fucker is the ultimate fair weather friend, so there will also be days when it's a slog and motivation isn't even picking up your calls. It's a complete misconception of human psychology that motivation precedes action. It's the other way around. Act first, become motivated later. That day you wake up full of motivation and fly out of bed and there's eye of the tiger and you're running up and down stairs airboxing in sweatpants, that day isn't ever coming. I think the notion that one needs motivation to do things comes from the educational space, where there's a lot of talk about motivating students to do this or that, and somehow this has been internalized into a notion that this is how we also operate ourselves, that we somehow need to bribe or intice ourselves to do the things we want to be doing, which when you think about it, doesn't really make sense.
- thefaux 2y ago
  "Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself." ― Chuck Close Close is a complicated person but the quote holds up.
  - CuriouslyC 2y ago
    Showing up and getting to work is a great mantra for people who already have traction. For people that aren't, that's a recipe for burnout, as you need space and time to keep pushing in the face of uncertain returns.
- divan 2y ago
  > It's a complete misconception of human psychology that motivation precedes action. It's not a misconception, it's the definition of motivation. The misconception is using the word "motivation" only for intrinsic motivation. If you have a gun pointed at your head, you'll be quite motivated to do whatever the person holding the gun tells you. External motivation can be extremely powerful, it just doesn't last long. > Act first, become motivated later. You're right. You need some external motivation to start "acting first". There are four types of external motivation (from more external to more internal) – fully external, introjected, identified, internal. Rewards and punishments are the first (external), rewards/punishments "in your head" (aka image of your parents telling you to do homework or you don't get TV time) are the second (introjected), part of your identity ("I'm Muslim, thus have to wear hijab") - third (identified), and "I truly believe I have to do something" is fourth (internal). Internal type of external motivation differs from intrinsic motivation (which is defined as "acting because I enjoy the process", and you can truly believe you have to do something but not enjoy it). Discipline and self-discipline are somewhere between introjected and internal types, but it's essentially a codename for external motivation nevertheless. In many cases you really want to instill intrinsic motivation in kids/athletes/employees/etc. But you need to "act first" and repetitively link it to the positive emotions – and that's where external motivation (and discipline) can be used strategically to create intrinsic one. Unfortunately a lot of people/fields/disciplines get stuck in the external reward systems and don't use it strategically.
artemavv 2y ago
Has anyone tried FocusMate or similar services? I have not used it myself but I think it may be useful to overcome procrastination. However, I doubt that having a random collaborators (a new one for each session) could do much for my motivation. I would prefer to keep collaborating with the same person for a longer period - a week or a month, to get better accountability
- hu3 2y ago
  I haven't yet but I'm contemplating streaming work on Twitch / Youtube.
gs17 2y ago
> For example, the Money Bots, which pop up every time someone subscribes. Imagine not getting that message for a long time. Some people might say "that's encouragement to work harder so we get subscribers!", others "no one likes it, I should give up". It feels like this is much more powerful if you're already motivated.
- residentraspber 2y ago
  I completely agree! The company I'm currently working on is pretty cyclical such that we get a bunch of new activity towards the middle of each month and nothing at the beginning or end. This leads to our notifications to go wild sometimes making us super happy then trailing off and making us worry other times.
LZ_Khan 2y ago
This is awesome, thank you. I feel like some of these tips could be substantial research areas in psychology in the future (like first go from nothing -> work rather than reddit -> work)
mpalmer 2y ago
In my experience it's always challenging for people who struggle with focus and motivation to have conversations about it with people who don't have those issues, even when everyone involved means well. Unless someone has experienced both dynamics, it's very hard for each to put themselves in the shoes of the other, because we're talking about brain chemistry. No one with severe ADHD symptoms really knows what it's like to have a calm mind for an entire day, let alone most days (and what that means for one's career and social life). They can reason that such a thing is possible, but that's different from really grasping the experience. Same for the other way around - you can reason that ADHD is a real and often debilitating condition because you see its effects, but you still might have trouble believing they're not also just a little lazy.
- Swizec 2y ago
  Also an important aspect is that high functioning undiagnosed ADD often manifests as ”What do you mean? Obviously everyone experiences this” If you keep thinking that ADD people are complaining about nothing, it may be a good to get tested. You might just have developed lots of coping strategies!
- joenot443 2y ago
  In my experience, the ones best able to navigate that conversation are individuals with ADHD who now medicate and can observe the difference. Scott describes the phenomenon roughly as one’s “motivation” existing and fluctuating on a spectrum, with the absolute minimum being full sedentary psychosis and the maximum basically being mania. Some people spend their whole lives towards the edge of that spectrum and upon medication (normally a type of stimulant) bump themselves along into the “normal” range. I’ve witnessed the change for a handful of people close to me and it really is remarkable.
  - DontchaKnowit 2y ago
    Have you ever taken adhd medication? I feel like your perspective might be different if you experienced stinulants first hand.
mpalmer 2y ago
Very good post. A lot of it rings true with my own experience and it seems like you've found a lot of good ways to work with what you've got, instead of around or through it. I also like "addressing the pain" - a bit too much. I seek out pain just to build tools that address it, because that's almost always more fun than the task itself. If someone paid me just to build things that improve people's personal workflows I'd take the job in a second.
- kahmeal 2y ago
  Sounds like a great personality type for a platform engineer..
  - mpalmer 2y ago
    Yeah I agree, something like that. Honestly though I think it's more than that, I like building "toys" that are fun to use (and help with productive work). I don't think anyone's hiring toymakers, I might need to go solo myself if I'm determined. And of course my deep fear is I'd find that perfect job and nothing about my habits would change.
franczesko 2y ago
'Some days when I’m not getting anything done, I’ve got this lingering guilt that I’m having a “zero day”' I had this and after many years of treating myself that way, I treat myself kindly. It's a toxic approach and the easiest way to burnout. It's OK not to do anything.
- grugagag 2y ago
  It’s okay to have ebbs and flows. I would be worried only if that turns into a very long period of time. And even that is okay at times..
SeriousM 2y ago
> Do nothing > I get sucked into high-tech Skinner Boxes all the time. Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, etc. The best way I’ve found to get out of this is to do it in two steps. First I go from Reddit to doing nothing, then I get to work. > Going straight from Reddit to focused work is very hard, but doing nothing is much easier, and eventually your brain calms down and it doesn’t feel nearly as hard to start writing some code. > I really mean doing nothing; I’ll just sit in front of my screen for a few minutes and as if by magic, the consumption-fueled dopamine-overload fog will lift, and I can get excited about creation and problem-solving again. Exactly that. I guess the hardest part is to close the browser tab of YT/HN/...
oars 2y ago
Useful tips, thanks for sharing.
jerrygoyal 2y ago
> I really mean doing nothing; I’ll just sit in front of my screen for a few minutes You can go one step further and focus on your breath instead of just sitting idle to calm your mind as well (mini-meditation). I do this instead of doom-scrolling and have experienced positive results.
animal531 2y ago
My whole life I thought that ADHD was that thing where there's a kid who runs around like crazy and can't calm down, which didn't really fit me. But then I saw this great JaidenAnimations video about it and figured out how many of the ADD issues I have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0hL4mJInm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0hL4mJInm0
Aerbil313 2y ago
Another one: Work on groundbreaking frontier software. There’s plenty of it.
staticBr 2y ago
Thanks mate, nice read!

336 points by marcusbuffett 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Great article and tips. I've heard all of these before separately of course but having them all in one article makes it nice. As I was reading each one, I thought, these all sound like solutions (or at least helpful tips) I've heard for people who have ADHD, and lo and behold, I see the last section.

mey 2y ago
I wish the tip at the end was, seek treatment for ADD/ADHD, or any other issues that impact your quality of life. It isn't a failure to do so and can make things better in the long run.
- marcusbuffett 2y ago
  The only real treatment for ADHD is to medicate, and I’ve seen some studies that show your brain creates more dopamine pathways (forget the actual term, but basically more efficient at getting rid of dopamine) over time, which means that if I were to go off the medication, I’m potentially worse off than before. That seems too high of a cost. I have tried it before though, it certainly works.

Zambyte 2y ago

I think these tips are really helpful for me working on a team but remotely also.

tnolet 2y ago

Sounds very familiar. Was a solo dev for at least 2 years before being able to form a team around my product. One nit, one confirm: - I don't agree with the guiltiness on zero days. There is just no way to stay sane if you don't truly enjoy zero days. You will burn your candle. - I 1000% agree that any form of customer validation makes your day. Could be a Stripe ping, a mention on Twitter or here. Set up services like https://f5bot.com/ https://f5bot.com/. Google alerts is useless. My totally failed / crickets initial launch here on HN is findable via submissions in my bio, anno 2018. Three upvotes.

dewey 2y ago
Another great service for mentions is https://syften.com/ https://syften.com/, also supports Twitter but is paid.
- marcusbuffett 2y ago
  This is the one I use, should have mentioned in the article
- tnolet 2y ago
  Yeah. We use that too now but still have my F5 account going
marcusbuffett 2y ago
Yeah there’s some nuance to the zero days thing. If it’s a day I’ve already set aside that’s fine, but I’ve found myself unable to decide in the moment “not feeling it today, this will be a zero day”, and be okay with that emotionally. Unless I’ve shipped a massive feature recently or something, then it’s okay. Motivation is a mess, is what I’m getting at :) Haha I share in your frustration with the crickets launch, anything I post here that I actually care about people seeing, gets shuttled off to the shadow realm, then stuff like this that’s just musing tends to hit the front page.
- alex_suzuki 2y ago
  For what it’s worth, I feel the exact same way about zero days. Intellectually I know I deserve them, but something inside me just refuses to stop thinking “I need to work now” until I’ve had some kind of “minimum viable productivity” to show. But interestingly as soon as I do, I can absolutely disconnect.
- anyfoo 2y ago
  Yeah, I know that feeling well. The day after completing a massive thing, I'm super happy to have a zero day, and just enjoy the feeling of having accomplished something big. Other days, not so much.
- 2y ago

pizzalife 2y ago

This reminds me of when me and some friends were selling "IRC bouncers" aka IRC VPNs around 2005. Whenever we got a new customer ($1 SMS payment) there would be an automatic announcement in our internal IRC channel. Even though it wasn't a lot of money, it was a very rewarding feeling.

thesurlydev 2y ago

Thanks for sharing. I especially liked the leaving tasks 90% done. This is motivation for someone who has 1000 unfinished side projects to finish one tomorrow :)

alex_suzuki 2y ago
I found that one interesting too. I do something similar but different: I keep a bunch of “warmup tasks” around, basically easy, low-risk (usually coding) tasks that are 90% likely to be quick motivational boosts to get started in the morning. NGL this has occasionally backfired and something simple turned out to be not so simple at all :-)
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  > NGL this has occasionally backfired and something simple turned out to be not so simple at all :-) In my case it often backfires in the form of a sudden decision, right or wrong, that yesterday-me made a bunch of bad decisions about something so they all need to be revisited. Before I know it, the thing that was 90% complete is now 60% complete.
JoshTriplett 2y ago
> I try to leave a task 90% finished at the end of a working session. It feels slightly worse than closing out the work, but it makes starting the next day 10x easier. Yeah, this one works incredibly well for me as well, and wasn't at all obvious until I saw it for the first time a few years ago.

Xeamek 2y ago

The 'leave things undone' tip sounds really good, definitely will try.

SoftTalker 2y ago
I never liked it because I like to go home without any nagging problems, and intentionally not think about work until the next day. It's not always possible, but I try to wrap up loose ends to the extent possible by the end of each day.
- ed 2y ago
  Personally I try to finish a feature, but leave QA for the morning. This way my first task is “copy and paste this command into terminal” or “use X feature in the app.” Because there’s always something that needs tweaking before it’s really done, this naturally pulls me into flow the next day. It’s a great trick!
- VBprogrammer 2y ago
  Leaving yourself a clear idea of what is next to do would be similarly effective IMHO. Finish the task you are on then open up the next task, maybe open up the right file in your editor then log off for the evening.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Yes, I just meant I like to leave work feeling like I've reached a "natural" stopping point. Something finished, or at least the path to finishing is clear. What I dislike is when I'm stumped, puzzling over a bug or the correct implementation for a complicated feature. It's not always possible to resolve these situations by the end of the work day and they tend to nag at me through the evening. I don't like that and try to avoid it, rather than deliberately create this feeling ("leave things undone") as some sort of trick for motivation.
  - bfuller 2y ago
    One of my professors would always leave his pc set to the last move of klondike so he would return to work every day with a "win"

ezekg 2y ago

> Leave tasks unfinished I also do this. I learned that if I leave a failing test for myself in the morning, I'll think about it on and off and jump right in next session without wasting time on HN or YT for an hour or 2 in the mornings. Sometimes this ends up causing me to work a little bit late, trying to make sure I actually have a failing test written for the problem (sometimes I have an issue without an accompanying test yet), but it's worth the extra effort/time. A failing test gives me something 100% actionable to jump into in the morning, as opposed to leaving e.g. a feature half written which can have an ambiguous starting point in terms of jumping back into it. I can't recommend this enough.

marcusbuffett 2y ago
I love this, I’m going to start doing this. It’ll help me actually start writing tests too lol
tnolet 2y ago
I was super in the other camp. Could not sleep if something wasn’t finished. Especially for coding. For marketing I found a (good) blog post can take a couple of days.
- ezekg 2y ago
  I ebb and flow. Sometimes the failed test consumes me and I end up staying up late after the family goes to bed to solve it. :) It kind of flows into the author's other point, "if I’ve got it, use it."
- unshavedyak 2y ago
  I'm similar, but for me it's i can't sleep if i don't understand the issue. Once i understand it enough that i've either fixed it in my head, or i'm confident i can fix it with the available knowledge, then it doesn't bother me. "Understand it in my head" is often a good stopping point too. Because if i actually go and fix it, i may find out i was wrong and spend even more time re-analyzing the issue to reach a new understanding.

maddynator 2y ago

Does anyone knows if there are any instructions on how do you configure the money bot?

marcusbuffett 2y ago
Basically just setup a discord webhook, and most languages will have a discord client you can use. Just when you get a subscription webhook event from stripe/apple/google, send a notification to that webhook
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

oglop 2y ago

Step one; log on Step two; feel sad Step three; hate your life choices Step 4 repeat

meiraleal 2y ago
Isn't this exactly what motivates people to quit corporate life and become a solo dev?

hamasho 2y ago

Thanks for the tip! I'll try leaving a task unfinished to start the next day with a small win. As a remote dev, I struggle to be productive all day. My company trusts me and gives me lots of flexibility, which sometimes allows me to procrastinate for days, leading to self-blaming and anxiety. I know starting the day in a good mood makes the rest of the day easier. Kicking off with a small victory definitely helps my productivity!

ravenstine 2y ago

While I'm not exactly sure what "solo dev" means for the author in terms of intent, I believe that the need to manage motivation is usually a sign that what one is doing is at least somewhat off-course from the ideal of the individual. In simpler terms, if you are struggling to be motivated for something, you can certainly try to change yourself, but it can be at least as reasonable to change that something. I learned this about myself a few years ago when I quit my job to build a compact piece of wearable hardware that measures metabolism through breath in real time. Even though I was burning through my savings, I spent close to a year working on this thing day in and day out. I had so many different "responsibilities" on my project and so many things to learn that motivation was never an issue, and I did finish a working device in the end. This is coming from someone who has dealt with motivational issues many times. That also wasn't the first time I quit my job to work on a project, though previous projects often ended early when I lost the motivation. At first, I thought this was a sign of a problem with myself, but in retrospect I think it's good that I lost motivation. Those ideas weren't that great and I wasn't as engaged in them, and it's likely I just would have wasted more time and money on them had I not acknowledged the writing on the wall. In fairness, this outlook is easy to have when you aren't doing something for income. To some extent, we do have to manage motivation for day jobs. I can't honestly say that I'd be coding enterprise applications if I wasn't getting paid handsomely to do that. Even though I am paid, part of motivation is having a mission that's important to you, and it's easy to lose sight of your mission if you've been paid a regular salary for quite some time. The author's "leave tasks unfinished" strategy plays into this principle at a very small level, but I think recognizing a greater ambition and keeping it in your consciousness can be important as well. A lot of people find the motivation to work harder and longer when they have kids, for instance. Since I don't have kids, I've found that regularly coming back to investing and retirement planning has been a good motivator for my day job because I get enjoyment out of making my money work for me; I loosely visualize what I want my life to be like in 20 years from now and strategize how to get there based on my current trajectory. I don't think about it most days, but revisiting this every few weeks reminds me why my day job is important. For others, perhaps owning a house and converting the garage to an art studio would be a goal to motivate one through their day job. In short, I think motivation is more a form of measure than a virtue in and of itself. It can tell you whether you've lost sight of ambition or if what you're doing just isn't that great. "Hacks" will only get you so far. That said, a "hack" that works for me is to just keep reminding myself to "keep up the pace." Even if I barely accomplish anything in a day, as long as I accomplish a minuscule thing on a daily basis, my frequency of accomplishment stays roughly the same. Going too long not really getting anything done is when motivating yourself to jump back in the game gets very difficult.

_f9cu 2y ago

I pick weights over my head. It strenghthens the inner voice stronger, and it tells me, this gives me stronger mind voice, calm pace. slow and steady

marginalia_nu 2y ago

IMO one shouldn't rely on motivation to do things. You don't need to be motivated to do things. You can do things even though they suck. There'll be good days when motivation is there to cheer you on, but that fucker is the ultimate fair weather friend, so there will also be days when it's a slog and motivation isn't even picking up your calls. It's a complete misconception of human psychology that motivation precedes action. It's the other way around. Act first, become motivated later. That day you wake up full of motivation and fly out of bed and there's eye of the tiger and you're running up and down stairs airboxing in sweatpants, that day isn't ever coming. I think the notion that one needs motivation to do things comes from the educational space, where there's a lot of talk about motivating students to do this or that, and somehow this has been internalized into a notion that this is how we also operate ourselves, that we somehow need to bribe or intice ourselves to do the things we want to be doing, which when you think about it, doesn't really make sense.

thefaux 2y ago
"Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself." ― Chuck Close Close is a complicated person but the quote holds up.
- CuriouslyC 2y ago
  Showing up and getting to work is a great mantra for people who already have traction. For people that aren't, that's a recipe for burnout, as you need space and time to keep pushing in the face of uncertain returns.
divan 2y ago
> It's a complete misconception of human psychology that motivation precedes action. It's not a misconception, it's the definition of motivation. The misconception is using the word "motivation" only for intrinsic motivation. If you have a gun pointed at your head, you'll be quite motivated to do whatever the person holding the gun tells you. External motivation can be extremely powerful, it just doesn't last long. > Act first, become motivated later. You're right. You need some external motivation to start "acting first". There are four types of external motivation (from more external to more internal) – fully external, introjected, identified, internal. Rewards and punishments are the first (external), rewards/punishments "in your head" (aka image of your parents telling you to do homework or you don't get TV time) are the second (introjected), part of your identity ("I'm Muslim, thus have to wear hijab") - third (identified), and "I truly believe I have to do something" is fourth (internal). Internal type of external motivation differs from intrinsic motivation (which is defined as "acting because I enjoy the process", and you can truly believe you have to do something but not enjoy it). Discipline and self-discipline are somewhere between introjected and internal types, but it's essentially a codename for external motivation nevertheless. In many cases you really want to instill intrinsic motivation in kids/athletes/employees/etc. But you need to "act first" and repetitively link it to the positive emotions – and that's where external motivation (and discipline) can be used strategically to create intrinsic one. Unfortunately a lot of people/fields/disciplines get stuck in the external reward systems and don't use it strategically.

artemavv 2y ago

Has anyone tried FocusMate or similar services? I have not used it myself but I think it may be useful to overcome procrastination. However, I doubt that having a random collaborators (a new one for each session) could do much for my motivation. I would prefer to keep collaborating with the same person for a longer period - a week or a month, to get better accountability

hu3 2y ago
I haven't yet but I'm contemplating streaming work on Twitch / Youtube.

gs17 2y ago

> For example, the Money Bots, which pop up every time someone subscribes. Imagine not getting that message for a long time. Some people might say "that's encouragement to work harder so we get subscribers!", others "no one likes it, I should give up". It feels like this is much more powerful if you're already motivated.

residentraspber 2y ago
I completely agree! The company I'm currently working on is pretty cyclical such that we get a bunch of new activity towards the middle of each month and nothing at the beginning or end. This leads to our notifications to go wild sometimes making us super happy then trailing off and making us worry other times.

LZ_Khan 2y ago

This is awesome, thank you. I feel like some of these tips could be substantial research areas in psychology in the future (like first go from nothing -> work rather than reddit -> work)

mpalmer 2y ago

In my experience it's always challenging for people who struggle with focus and motivation to have conversations about it with people who don't have those issues, even when everyone involved means well. Unless someone has experienced both dynamics, it's very hard for each to put themselves in the shoes of the other, because we're talking about brain chemistry. No one with severe ADHD symptoms really knows what it's like to have a calm mind for an entire day, let alone most days (and what that means for one's career and social life). They can reason that such a thing is possible, but that's different from really grasping the experience. Same for the other way around - you can reason that ADHD is a real and often debilitating condition because you see its effects, but you still might have trouble believing they're not also just a little lazy.

Swizec 2y ago
Also an important aspect is that high functioning undiagnosed ADD often manifests as ”What do you mean? Obviously everyone experiences this” If you keep thinking that ADD people are complaining about nothing, it may be a good to get tested. You might just have developed lots of coping strategies!
joenot443 2y ago
In my experience, the ones best able to navigate that conversation are individuals with ADHD who now medicate and can observe the difference. Scott describes the phenomenon roughly as one’s “motivation” existing and fluctuating on a spectrum, with the absolute minimum being full sedentary psychosis and the maximum basically being mania. Some people spend their whole lives towards the edge of that spectrum and upon medication (normally a type of stimulant) bump themselves along into the “normal” range. I’ve witnessed the change for a handful of people close to me and it really is remarkable.
- DontchaKnowit 2y ago
  Have you ever taken adhd medication? I feel like your perspective might be different if you experienced stinulants first hand.

mpalmer 2y ago

Very good post. A lot of it rings true with my own experience and it seems like you've found a lot of good ways to work with what you've got, instead of around or through it. I also like "addressing the pain" - a bit too much. I seek out pain just to build tools that address it, because that's almost always more fun than the task itself. If someone paid me just to build things that improve people's personal workflows I'd take the job in a second.

kahmeal 2y ago
Sounds like a great personality type for a platform engineer..
- mpalmer 2y ago
  Yeah I agree, something like that. Honestly though I think it's more than that, I like building "toys" that are fun to use (and help with productive work). I don't think anyone's hiring toymakers, I might need to go solo myself if I'm determined. And of course my deep fear is I'd find that perfect job and nothing about my habits would change.

franczesko 2y ago

'Some days when I’m not getting anything done, I’ve got this lingering guilt that I’m having a “zero day”' I had this and after many years of treating myself that way, I treat myself kindly. It's a toxic approach and the easiest way to burnout. It's OK not to do anything.

grugagag 2y ago
It’s okay to have ebbs and flows. I would be worried only if that turns into a very long period of time. And even that is okay at times..

SeriousM 2y ago

> Do nothing > I get sucked into high-tech Skinner Boxes all the time. Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, etc. The best way I’ve found to get out of this is to do it in two steps. First I go from Reddit to doing nothing, then I get to work. > Going straight from Reddit to focused work is very hard, but doing nothing is much easier, and eventually your brain calms down and it doesn’t feel nearly as hard to start writing some code. > I really mean doing nothing; I’ll just sit in front of my screen for a few minutes and as if by magic, the consumption-fueled dopamine-overload fog will lift, and I can get excited about creation and problem-solving again. Exactly that. I guess the hardest part is to close the browser tab of YT/HN/...

oars 2y ago

Useful tips, thanks for sharing.

jerrygoyal 2y ago

> I really mean doing nothing; I’ll just sit in front of my screen for a few minutes You can go one step further and focus on your breath instead of just sitting idle to calm your mind as well (mini-meditation). I do this instead of doom-scrolling and have experienced positive results.

animal531 2y ago

My whole life I thought that ADHD was that thing where there's a kid who runs around like crazy and can't calm down, which didn't really fit me. But then I saw this great JaidenAnimations video about it and figured out how many of the ADD issues I have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0hL4mJInm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0hL4mJInm0

Aerbil313 2y ago

Another one: Work on groundbreaking frontier software. There’s plenty of it.

staticBr 2y ago

Thanks mate, nice read!