7 ms·

It's Okay to Abandon Things

82 points by surprisetalk 2y ago

yamrzou 2y ago
The Unfinished Project Release Form looks cool! Thanks for sharing.
rpastuszak 2y ago
I like the way Jordi Brun approaches scoping/deciding when to continue or abandon personal projects: - 2 hours for a PoC - 2 days for a prototype you can share - 2 weeks for something actually useful I put together some notes on the subject here: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/2-2-2-project-scoping-technique/ https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/2-2-2-project-scoping-techn...
- xnorswap 2y ago
  That's written by an oddly highly motivated individual. It often takes me 2 hours to focus and stop daydreaming. Perhaps that's a good signal that I'm not a natural "builder" and I should take the hint.
  - pdimitar 2y ago
    Nonsense, a lot of genius builders needed months to just begin one project. And some of them needed decades to even finish the thing. Don't let yourself be chained by artificial frameworks that were arbitrarily formulated by someone who feels everything should be on schedule.
    - rpastuszak 2y ago
      > Don't let yourself be chained by artificial frameworks that were arbitrarily formulated by someone who feels everything should be on schedule. Can't agree more. Just please, please consider the context of this site when reading: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/this-is-not-writing-or-productivity-advice/ https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/this-is-not-writing-or-prod... The only advice that really works for me is this: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/share-your-unfinished-scrappy-work/ https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/share-your-unfinished-scrap... - happy 0.1x developer
  - zelphirkalt 2y ago
    Or a visionary.
  - rpastuszak 2y ago
    > That's written by an oddly highly motivated individual. On the contrary. Sometimes I struggle with attention or get hyperfocussed on a specific problem, so I use these to keep myself in check. I fail most of the time, still, just a little bit less often.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago
  [dead]
- gwervc 2y ago
  Those deadlines are way to short except for really small projects little like a single static web page. Or the guy is a x100 developer.
  - rpastuszak 2y ago
    100% agree. This is fine if you're experimenting with product discovery or small projects. > Or the guy is a x100 developer. Haha, I've had 0.1x developer* as my bio on the cringe blue site™ for the past decade or so. I just want to make toys. * inspired by a post by this post by Benji Weber: https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2016/01/25/why-i-strive-to-be-a-0-1x-engineer/ https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2016/01/25/why-i-strive-to-be-...
- rpastuszak 2y ago
  I can't edit, so will post here: please read the note before commenting (it's short), a lot of context is missing in this quick comment. Apologies, I should've put this phrase in more context. I agree with most of the comments, even the snarky ones, but I didn't express what I meant well enough.
- Uptrenda 2y ago
  Lmao. HN people don't want to grind for years to solve tough problems. They want to find some 'hack' or side-trick to bypass everything. But the reality is some problems take a long time to solve. How long do you think Bitcoin took to write? It wasn't 2 weeks.
  - rpastuszak 2y ago
    Ok, pal, before you continue gangbanging me, please read the note!
    - Uptrenda 2y ago
      Sorry, it wasn't my intention to make you feel harassed. Your advice probably makes a lot of sense for people who like to release many smaller products. Scope creep and extreme complexity are problems I've struggled with myself, and I often find it hard to start with the most basic deliverable rather than a vision that is much further along. I still have a lot to learn and I think these things are important problems for HN-type people.
      - rpastuszak 2y ago
        Thanks, I appreciate that. As much as many people here didn't seem to have read the article or the note I linked, I should've phrased it differently so the context was apparent.
cm277 2y ago
I mostly agree with
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
That could be Google's new slogan.
itsmemattchung 2y ago
Ultimately, I think this article is about having self-compassion. Yes, sometimes a little perseverance goes a long way. Yes, things are a handful of things we "have" to do. However, I appreciate that the author is practicing giving himself grace. We all start reading book that were excited about and sometimes "abandoning" the book is the right call. In that way, I like how the author of the blog post created a "stepped-away" book shelf on their goodread profile.
pdimitar 2y ago
These neat brain hacks are basically self-therapy so kudos to the author for discovering one such technique and applying it successfully. Very likely saved money on an indifferent therapist, too. -- The following is NOT a knock on the author, I am simply sharing observations of some other types of people I knew a while ago: Some people just want to feel intelligent and that gives them validation so they basically sprint through 200+ books as some sort of a badge of honor. They then proceeded to claim they are "well read" and couldn't answer 3 questions about the plot about 5 of the books I've also read from their catalog. They hated my guts afterwards of course -- I dispelled the street cred they have "suffered" through -- and then they never called again but I was just left wondering why would you be forcing yourself to read books you don't enjoy and then you are only kind of moving your eyes through the pages without remembering or learning anything at all. Seemed, and still seems, counter-productive. Again, not a knock on the article author, just sharing something that came to me during the reading of the article.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  That sounds like the kind of people that gamify their life; reading X books per year, running Y miles, doing Z steps on their step counter, counting calories, quantifying sleep, working in 25 minute timed increments and counting how many you've achieved in a day, number of lines written, commits done, github contribution graph colour / activity streaks, etc. It's like. Maybe you should find a hobby if you need to gamify things to keep doing them.
  - hshshshsvsv 2y ago
    Their hobby is gamification.
  - strken 2y ago
    I count calories because I don't want to be fat again, having found fatness limiting. It has absolute nothing to do with meeting an arbitrary number and is not particularly gamified either. I need to track calories because otherwise I'll overeat. This is a bizarre take on goal-setting in general. Would you complain about people who negotiate a raise of X dollars? No, you understand that money has value. Losing weight has value too, as do cardiovascular fitness and getting enough sleep. "Maybe you should find a hobby" is not an answer to me not wanting to be fat. It's a ridiculous non-sequitur. How on earth do you expect finding a hobby to stop me having a heart attack or losing a foot to diabetes?
PaulRobinson 2y ago
I've been reading Oliver Burkeman's latest book[1], which starts with a message a previous book of his [2] dug into quite deeply: You can't do it all. Just reflect on it for a moment before you continue: you can't and won't get to do it all. You won't be all the things you dream about being, you won't get to visit all the places, read all those books, eat all those meals, have all those experiences, there just isn't enough time. And that's OK. When I see a book or blog article called something like "500 films to watch before you die", I think: first, that's a todo list, no thanks; secondly, assuming an average run time of 2 hours, I perhaps have time in my life for 5 a week max, so this is now 2 years of my life, or if I just do one a week this is now a 10-year project. I might not even live that long, and then if I know I'm about to die I'm going to feel anxiety at an incomplete list. Give up with the big lists and goals for this stuff. Just go do things. And I heartily recommend Burkeman's books. [1] https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/ab57bc2b-afcf-405a-a57b-c753cc74727e https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/ab57bc2b-afcf-405a-a57b-... [2] https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f7c8a521-f921-432a-b48a-f594b715969f https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f7c8a521-f921-432a-b48a-...
- WA 2y ago
  I loved Four Thousand Weeks. The new one sounds intriguing, but wasn't the point of the first book that "you don't even need to Finally Make Time for What Counts", because that is a rather new concept considering the history of civilization? You just did what you had to do. You don't have to make it count and min-max your life. Do you see this as a contradiction?
- voiper1 2y ago
  +1 for Burkerman. The first thing I read from him was "it's worse than you think" [1] I was trying to finish my to-do lists to rest when he pointed out... I'll never finish. I'll always put new things on my to-do list. Once you dig down, you realize the issue is even worse and that gives the opportunity for a paradigm shift. https://ckarchive.com/b/75u7h8hkk9g9e https://ckarchive.com/b/75u7h8hkk9g9e
  - ziggyzecat 2y ago
    here's how i shifted that paradigm: have 1 item per list and no more, with only 3 priority levels: on deadline, life, wonderland. make sure to stack whats finished. 'reorganize' lists you didn't get around to yet, regularly; just to know what's on them in case you ever stumble upon something that might extend one of the puzzles around those wondrous subject and objects on your many lists.
hshshshsvsv 2y ago
If you find this idea interesting or new, you haven't really deeply thought about your own mortality and how your body is dying slowly. There is nothing for you to hold on to no matter the illusions created by your mind.
scarygliders 2y ago
Projects I haven't touched for a long, long time... XRDPConfigurator : https://github.com/scarygliders/XRDPConfigurator https://github.com/scarygliders/XRDPConfigurator - This is a GUI application I wrote 10 years ago. It even has a full WYSIWYG emulation of the xrdp login screen, which you can use to customize the look of it! All written in Python and PySide. It was originally meant to be a commercial product that I'd sell. Turns out there was no market for it and no one seems interested in it. Oh well! X11RDP-o-Matic : https://github.com/scarygliders/X11RDP-o-Matic https://github.com/scarygliders/X11RDP-o-Matic - This was a shell script which automatically built and installed the Xrdp server on Debian based systems. Was quite popular back in the day but became kinda obsolete, which was good. Polkit Explorer : https://github.com/scarygliders/Polkit-Explorer https://github.com/scarygliders/Polkit-Explorer - reads in a Policykit .policy file, parses its XML contents, and presents the information it contains, on a more human-readable GUI window. This seems to be useful to folks and someone even created an Arch Linux AUR for it, which was nice. I perhaps should try to update it so that it works with more modern versions of Python and PySide. That last one. Hmmm. It's been a hot minute since I even thought about it, but someone recently created an issue to do with getting it running with python 3.12, so maybe I should have a peek at it once again... The author of the article, I agree with. It's OK to abandon things. XRDPConfigurator is what I used to learn Python and Qt (with a naive goal of making income from it). That application took a year and bit of my time. I'm particularly proud of the Xrdp emulation, and the WYSIWYG editing of the Xrdp login screen layout! But spending any more time on it was wasted time. I open-sourced it after taking out all the nasty - and self-designed - registration (DRM) stuff I'd also had (which spoke to a central registration server and was Very Clever[tm] With No Chance Of Being Bypassed! ( /s ), and promptly just left it stewing in stasis. And no one was really interested in it, either. I guess Xrdp just isn't sexy enough for folks ;)
helboi4 2y ago
I think this is the last thing I need to hear
imgabe 2y ago
I have this same problem with books. One thing that helps with nonfiction books: just skim it. Especially if it's a pop-sci, business type book that is a lot of unnecessary fluff to make word count. When it gets tedious, skim the rest. Read the headlines, a few paragraphs, skip all the anecdotes. You still get the idea. You don't have to force yourself to choke down every word.
kelahcim 2y ago
I feel like I sympathise with books related section: https://www.owsiak.org/reading-books-you-are-doing-it-wrong/ https://www.owsiak.org/reading-books-you-are-doing-it-wrong/
pocketarc 2y ago
> I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD and don’t feel that I have it, but there’s a little sparkle at starting a new project and a certain amount of slog in following certain ones through to their logical end. Every now and then (usually after reading something on here that brings it up) I wonder about this for myself as well. I don't think it's ADHD, it's just... normal life, surely? New projects are always more exciting than the last, boring, grindy bits of a side project.
GistNoesis 2y ago
Here is my double-edge-sword one. (A recipe for interesting yet unsuccessful paths). - Don't start something until you have set a finish line. You have full freedom on how you set the finish line. If the finish line is too far away, split into subproject for which you can set a closer finish line. Sometimes you will fail to reach the finish line for some unforeseen reasons, that's OK, just reevaluate if this impact the feasibility of the upper projects. - Don't start something you don't have the resources for. If some project are expected to be long-running, you should plan for the resources needed for their being interrupted. Because you can interrupt and restart projects, advancing is just picking some task for the day from your priority queue. This one is tricky because if you start to define a subproject that you have the resources to do (like building a prototype), once it is done, people will tell you it's just a prototype, and you don't have the resources to build the full thing nor find investors or customers). So maybe you shouldn't have built the prototype knowing you wouldn't be able to scale it up later. And then you get sunk-cost fallacy put on a dead-end road. - Don't share your projects. Uncouple task completion from external validation. External validation should be avoided. At anytime, you'll most likely be working on a subproject of a subproject. It's likely to be specific, boring, or some very valuable key brick that can be used for many other projects. If you chase the high of sharing a successful project and rely on it for taking each step, and at the end external success doesn't come, you are killing your future motivation source (in a kind of learned helplessness fashion). It often kills motivation, transforming the intrinsic reward of completing subprojects fully in your control into external rewards out of your control. Inversely it can lead you to delude yourself if you surround yourself with sycophants. External validation will want to set arbitrary finish lines upon you without regards for feasibility or resources needed. "Just turn it into money", "It's useless", "Don't give it for free" are things you don't like to hear when you run on an empty stomach after pouring your soul into making some great things.
- FridgeSeal 2y ago
  I wish HN let us favourite comments, because I’d favourite this and then print it out and stick it on my wall. Really like this.
  - 2y ago
ericyd 2y ago
I very much agree with the base premise here, but I do think with art (music, movies, books, etc) there can also be value in working to appreciate that which does not immediately reveal itself. Sometimes good art doesn't catch you in the first 10 mins and you need to spend more time with it to fully appreciate it. That said, there are plenty of times when this advice is absolutely on point. You should never feel guilty or bad for abandoning something you aren't enjoying.
- maroonblazer 2y ago
  Agree. This is where doing a little research can pay off handsomely. The first time I listened to Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring", I didn't 'get it'. But people in the know held it in very high esteem, so I gave it a few more listens, and eventually it opened up for me. It's now one of my favorite pieces of classical music. If I'd given up after 10 minutes I would've missed out.
sshine 2y ago
My stale projects can be categorized as being ahead or behind an event horizon: I will rarely let go of an idea, but I can calculate the probability that I'll ever pick a project up again. I don't feel sorry that some things I will never get back to: It's only because more interesting projects will always pop up before I get to the end of the stack. The same is true for browser tabs: My mind could literally go in a thousand directions, many of which lead elsewhere and not back. I'm cautious of throwing things away, because there are projects I've got back to after 5 years. Most often I'm going back to something after less than 6 months to understand what I did, so I can copy it in a similar project. The best quality of a spurious project is that it stacks against other things: When (not if) I abandon the project, I've made reusable components. And I'm cautious of making big initial investments if the project will fall behind.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
The most important thing is to function from a point of curiosity-driven creativity. Fear makes us define projects out of that, and the resulting project-driven life only kills creativity and makes us machines.
donatj 2y ago
I have something of the opposite problem with books. I'll get right around the hundred page mark, forget it existed, and start something new. I have probably 40 or 50 books with this status, and I have been doing this going back to Elementary School when I tried to read both Dune and The Gunslinger. I picked them up recently, starting fresh, and got just about as far.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

82 points by surprisetalk 2y ago

The Unfinished Project Release Form looks cool! Thanks for sharing.

I like the way Jordi Brun approaches scoping/deciding when to continue or abandon personal projects: - 2 hours for a PoC - 2 days for a prototype you can share - 2 weeks for something actually useful I put together some notes on the subject here: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/2-2-2-project-scoping-technique/ https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/2-2-2-project-scoping-techn...

xnorswap 2y ago
That's written by an oddly highly motivated individual. It often takes me 2 hours to focus and stop daydreaming. Perhaps that's a good signal that I'm not a natural "builder" and I should take the hint.
- pdimitar 2y ago
  Nonsense, a lot of genius builders needed months to just begin one project. And some of them needed decades to even finish the thing. Don't let yourself be chained by artificial frameworks that were arbitrarily formulated by someone who feels everything should be on schedule.
  - rpastuszak 2y ago
    > Don't let yourself be chained by artificial frameworks that were arbitrarily formulated by someone who feels everything should be on schedule. Can't agree more. Just please, please consider the context of this site when reading: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/this-is-not-writing-or-productivity-advice/ https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/this-is-not-writing-or-prod... The only advice that really works for me is this: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/share-your-unfinished-scrappy-work/ https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/share-your-unfinished-scrap... - happy 0.1x developer
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  Or a visionary.
- rpastuszak 2y ago
  > That's written by an oddly highly motivated individual. On the contrary. Sometimes I struggle with attention or get hyperfocussed on a specific problem, so I use these to keep myself in check. I fail most of the time, still, just a little bit less often.
oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]
gwervc 2y ago
Those deadlines are way to short except for really small projects little like a single static web page. Or the guy is a x100 developer.
- rpastuszak 2y ago
  100% agree. This is fine if you're experimenting with product discovery or small projects. > Or the guy is a x100 developer. Haha, I've had 0.1x developer* as my bio on the cringe blue site™ for the past decade or so. I just want to make toys. * inspired by a post by this post by Benji Weber: https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2016/01/25/why-i-strive-to-be-a-0-1x-engineer/ https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2016/01/25/why-i-strive-to-be-...
rpastuszak 2y ago
I can't edit, so will post here: please read the note before commenting (it's short), a lot of context is missing in this quick comment. Apologies, I should've put this phrase in more context. I agree with most of the comments, even the snarky ones, but I didn't express what I meant well enough.
Uptrenda 2y ago
Lmao. HN people don't want to grind for years to solve tough problems. They want to find some 'hack' or side-trick to bypass everything. But the reality is some problems take a long time to solve. How long do you think Bitcoin took to write? It wasn't 2 weeks.
- rpastuszak 2y ago
  Ok, pal, before you continue gangbanging me, please read the note!
  - Uptrenda 2y ago
    Sorry, it wasn't my intention to make you feel harassed. Your advice probably makes a lot of sense for people who like to release many smaller products. Scope creep and extreme complexity are problems I've struggled with myself, and I often find it hard to start with the most basic deliverable rather than a vision that is much further along. I still have a lot to learn and I think these things are important problems for HN-type people.
    - rpastuszak 2y ago
      Thanks, I appreciate that. As much as many people here didn't seem to have read the article or the note I linked, I should've phrased it differently so the context was apparent.

cm277 2y ago

I mostly agree with

Mountain_Skies 2y ago

That could be Google's new slogan.

itsmemattchung 2y ago

Ultimately, I think this article is about having self-compassion. Yes, sometimes a little perseverance goes a long way. Yes, things are a handful of things we "have" to do. However, I appreciate that the author is practicing giving himself grace. We all start reading book that were excited about and sometimes "abandoning" the book is the right call. In that way, I like how the author of the blog post created a "stepped-away" book shelf on their goodread profile.

pdimitar 2y ago

These neat brain hacks are basically self-therapy so kudos to the author for discovering one such technique and applying it successfully. Very likely saved money on an indifferent therapist, too. -- The following is NOT a knock on the author, I am simply sharing observations of some other types of people I knew a while ago: Some people just want to feel intelligent and that gives them validation so they basically sprint through 200+ books as some sort of a badge of honor. They then proceeded to claim they are "well read" and couldn't answer 3 questions about the plot about 5 of the books I've also read from their catalog. They hated my guts afterwards of course -- I dispelled the street cred they have "suffered" through -- and then they never called again but I was just left wondering why would you be forcing yourself to read books you don't enjoy and then you are only kind of moving your eyes through the pages without remembering or learning anything at all. Seemed, and still seems, counter-productive. Again, not a knock on the article author, just sharing something that came to me during the reading of the article.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
That sounds like the kind of people that gamify their life; reading X books per year, running Y miles, doing Z steps on their step counter, counting calories, quantifying sleep, working in 25 minute timed increments and counting how many you've achieved in a day, number of lines written, commits done, github contribution graph colour / activity streaks, etc. It's like. Maybe you should find a hobby if you need to gamify things to keep doing them.
- hshshshsvsv 2y ago
  Their hobby is gamification.
- strken 2y ago
  I count calories because I don't want to be fat again, having found fatness limiting. It has absolute nothing to do with meeting an arbitrary number and is not particularly gamified either. I need to track calories because otherwise I'll overeat. This is a bizarre take on goal-setting in general. Would you complain about people who negotiate a raise of X dollars? No, you understand that money has value. Losing weight has value too, as do cardiovascular fitness and getting enough sleep. "Maybe you should find a hobby" is not an answer to me not wanting to be fat. It's a ridiculous non-sequitur. How on earth do you expect finding a hobby to stop me having a heart attack or losing a foot to diabetes?

PaulRobinson 2y ago

I've been reading Oliver Burkeman's latest book[1], which starts with a message a previous book of his [2] dug into quite deeply: You can't do it all. Just reflect on it for a moment before you continue: you can't and won't get to do it all. You won't be all the things you dream about being, you won't get to visit all the places, read all those books, eat all those meals, have all those experiences, there just isn't enough time. And that's OK. When I see a book or blog article called something like "500 films to watch before you die", I think: first, that's a todo list, no thanks; secondly, assuming an average run time of 2 hours, I perhaps have time in my life for 5 a week max, so this is now 2 years of my life, or if I just do one a week this is now a 10-year project. I might not even live that long, and then if I know I'm about to die I'm going to feel anxiety at an incomplete list. Give up with the big lists and goals for this stuff. Just go do things. And I heartily recommend Burkeman's books. [1] https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/ab57bc2b-afcf-405a-a57b-c753cc74727e https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/ab57bc2b-afcf-405a-a57b-... [2] https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f7c8a521-f921-432a-b48a-f594b715969f https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f7c8a521-f921-432a-b48a-...

WA 2y ago
I loved Four Thousand Weeks. The new one sounds intriguing, but wasn't the point of the first book that "you don't even need to Finally Make Time for What Counts", because that is a rather new concept considering the history of civilization? You just did what you had to do. You don't have to make it count and min-max your life. Do you see this as a contradiction?
voiper1 2y ago
+1 for Burkerman. The first thing I read from him was "it's worse than you think" [1] I was trying to finish my to-do lists to rest when he pointed out... I'll never finish. I'll always put new things on my to-do list. Once you dig down, you realize the issue is even worse and that gives the opportunity for a paradigm shift. https://ckarchive.com/b/75u7h8hkk9g9e https://ckarchive.com/b/75u7h8hkk9g9e
- ziggyzecat 2y ago
  here's how i shifted that paradigm: have 1 item per list and no more, with only 3 priority levels: on deadline, life, wonderland. make sure to stack whats finished. 'reorganize' lists you didn't get around to yet, regularly; just to know what's on them in case you ever stumble upon something that might extend one of the puzzles around those wondrous subject and objects on your many lists.

hshshshsvsv 2y ago

If you find this idea interesting or new, you haven't really deeply thought about your own mortality and how your body is dying slowly. There is nothing for you to hold on to no matter the illusions created by your mind.

scarygliders 2y ago

Projects I haven't touched for a long, long time... XRDPConfigurator : https://github.com/scarygliders/XRDPConfigurator https://github.com/scarygliders/XRDPConfigurator - This is a GUI application I wrote 10 years ago. It even has a full WYSIWYG emulation of the xrdp login screen, which you can use to customize the look of it! All written in Python and PySide. It was originally meant to be a commercial product that I'd sell. Turns out there was no market for it and no one seems interested in it. Oh well! X11RDP-o-Matic : https://github.com/scarygliders/X11RDP-o-Matic https://github.com/scarygliders/X11RDP-o-Matic - This was a shell script which automatically built and installed the Xrdp server on Debian based systems. Was quite popular back in the day but became kinda obsolete, which was good. Polkit Explorer : https://github.com/scarygliders/Polkit-Explorer https://github.com/scarygliders/Polkit-Explorer - reads in a Policykit .policy file, parses its XML contents, and presents the information it contains, on a more human-readable GUI window. This seems to be useful to folks and someone even created an Arch Linux AUR for it, which was nice. I perhaps should try to update it so that it works with more modern versions of Python and PySide. That last one. Hmmm. It's been a hot minute since I even thought about it, but someone recently created an issue to do with getting it running with python 3.12, so maybe I should have a peek at it once again... The author of the article, I agree with. It's OK to abandon things. XRDPConfigurator is what I used to learn Python and Qt (with a naive goal of making income from it). That application took a year and bit of my time. I'm particularly proud of the Xrdp emulation, and the WYSIWYG editing of the Xrdp login screen layout! But spending any more time on it was wasted time. I open-sourced it after taking out all the nasty - and self-designed - registration (DRM) stuff I'd also had (which spoke to a central registration server and was Very Clever[tm] With No Chance Of Being Bypassed! ( /s ), and promptly just left it stewing in stasis. And no one was really interested in it, either. I guess Xrdp just isn't sexy enough for folks ;)

helboi4 2y ago

I think this is the last thing I need to hear

imgabe 2y ago

I have this same problem with books. One thing that helps with nonfiction books: just skim it. Especially if it's a pop-sci, business type book that is a lot of unnecessary fluff to make word count. When it gets tedious, skim the rest. Read the headlines, a few paragraphs, skip all the anecdotes. You still get the idea. You don't have to force yourself to choke down every word.

kelahcim 2y ago

I feel like I sympathise with books related section: https://www.owsiak.org/reading-books-you-are-doing-it-wrong/ https://www.owsiak.org/reading-books-you-are-doing-it-wrong/

pocketarc 2y ago

> I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD and don’t feel that I have it, but there’s a little sparkle at starting a new project and a certain amount of slog in following certain ones through to their logical end. Every now and then (usually after reading something on here that brings it up) I wonder about this for myself as well. I don't think it's ADHD, it's just... normal life, surely? New projects are always more exciting than the last, boring, grindy bits of a side project.

GistNoesis 2y ago

Here is my double-edge-sword one. (A recipe for interesting yet unsuccessful paths). - Don't start something until you have set a finish line. You have full freedom on how you set the finish line. If the finish line is too far away, split into subproject for which you can set a closer finish line. Sometimes you will fail to reach the finish line for some unforeseen reasons, that's OK, just reevaluate if this impact the feasibility of the upper projects. - Don't start something you don't have the resources for. If some project are expected to be long-running, you should plan for the resources needed for their being interrupted. Because you can interrupt and restart projects, advancing is just picking some task for the day from your priority queue. This one is tricky because if you start to define a subproject that you have the resources to do (like building a prototype), once it is done, people will tell you it's just a prototype, and you don't have the resources to build the full thing nor find investors or customers). So maybe you shouldn't have built the prototype knowing you wouldn't be able to scale it up later. And then you get sunk-cost fallacy put on a dead-end road. - Don't share your projects. Uncouple task completion from external validation. External validation should be avoided. At anytime, you'll most likely be working on a subproject of a subproject. It's likely to be specific, boring, or some very valuable key brick that can be used for many other projects. If you chase the high of sharing a successful project and rely on it for taking each step, and at the end external success doesn't come, you are killing your future motivation source (in a kind of learned helplessness fashion). It often kills motivation, transforming the intrinsic reward of completing subprojects fully in your control into external rewards out of your control. Inversely it can lead you to delude yourself if you surround yourself with sycophants. External validation will want to set arbitrary finish lines upon you without regards for feasibility or resources needed. "Just turn it into money", "It's useless", "Don't give it for free" are things you don't like to hear when you run on an empty stomach after pouring your soul into making some great things.

FridgeSeal 2y ago
I wish HN let us favourite comments, because I’d favourite this and then print it out and stick it on my wall. Really like this.
- 2y ago

ericyd 2y ago

I very much agree with the base premise here, but I do think with art (music, movies, books, etc) there can also be value in working to appreciate that which does not immediately reveal itself. Sometimes good art doesn't catch you in the first 10 mins and you need to spend more time with it to fully appreciate it. That said, there are plenty of times when this advice is absolutely on point. You should never feel guilty or bad for abandoning something you aren't enjoying.

maroonblazer 2y ago
Agree. This is where doing a little research can pay off handsomely. The first time I listened to Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring", I didn't 'get it'. But people in the know held it in very high esteem, so I gave it a few more listens, and eventually it opened up for me. It's now one of my favorite pieces of classical music. If I'd given up after 10 minutes I would've missed out.

sshine 2y ago

My stale projects can be categorized as being ahead or behind an event horizon: I will rarely let go of an idea, but I can calculate the probability that I'll ever pick a project up again. I don't feel sorry that some things I will never get back to: It's only because more interesting projects will always pop up before I get to the end of the stack. The same is true for browser tabs: My mind could literally go in a thousand directions, many of which lead elsewhere and not back. I'm cautious of throwing things away, because there are projects I've got back to after 5 years. Most often I'm going back to something after less than 6 months to understand what I did, so I can copy it in a similar project. The best quality of a spurious project is that it stacks against other things: When (not if) I abandon the project, I've made reusable components. And I'm cautious of making big initial investments if the project will fall behind.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

The most important thing is to function from a point of curiosity-driven creativity. Fear makes us define projects out of that, and the resulting project-driven life only kills creativity and makes us machines.

donatj 2y ago

I have something of the opposite problem with books. I'll get right around the hundred page mark, forget it existed, and start something new. I have probably 40 or 50 books with this status, and I have been doing this going back to Elementary School when I tried to read both Dune and The Gunslinger. I picked them up recently, starting fresh, and got just about as far.

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