How do you keep your motivation high?
Do you have suggestions on how to keep the motivation high?
I have like 7 products that I want to finish for the last couple of years and I can't get it done. I always skipping from product to product have a new idea that I want to validate, new technology to explore. Find all those excuses to postponed those products from being published. I think I am a professional procrastinator.
I saw a couple of motivation video on Ted/youtube etc... But, it's not that helping me.
In my day to day job, I am a software architect who knows how to do anything by myself, front-end, backend, devops, DevSecOps, mobile even marketing. My friends call me "Full R&D team in one person", so, I don't think I am doing this because I can't make any progress in terms of technical or business knowledge. I guess there are a lot of other peoples like me, who found the solution on how to keep up.
And ideas on how solve this will be much appreciated.
This may be terrible advice, but my approach has always been to establish a rhythm that makes my default something productive, and just keep going at that rhythm no matter how demotivated I'm feeling. It's not always pleasant but it gets results.
I'm definitely more productive when I'm feeling super motivated, but I'm pretty sure that most of my successes have come from being able to power through when I feel crappy. Maybe it helps not to obsess about feeling super motivated all the time, and just make sure that your down case is still pretty good. 🤷♂️
@meir_shamay, I fully back @greysteil on this and I don't think it's terrible advice. It's actually ... very good and proven.
Discipline > motivation. We can't rely on our feelings and emotions, they are extremely volatile, so this approach, while painful, is actually the best way to do it. Nurture your discipline and rely on it rather than your motivation. Been there, still there sometimes, but I'm making progress on it.
For example, most of the time you feel "too tired", you're actually not in the mood. How many times have you felt exhausted, started doing something (anything, even gaming), then ended up losing yourself in that for a few hours? Definitely means you weren't exhausted "enough" and still had energy. You just needed to plow through your brain trying to convince you not to do it.
As another example, when you're not in the mood, it's just your brain craving for what it's used to, what's easier to obtain or more energy efficient (solving problems means high energy usage). You'll find — at least sometimes — that pushing through the initial "I'm not in the mood at all" feeling will make you forget about it rather quickly; the brain has something to focus now.
Of course we are all more productive when we're in the mood or motivated. Prefer to be even 20% productive when you feel crappy (compared to your best) than ... 0%.
Do not rely on motivation. Do not wait for motivation. Motivation boosts are helpful, for sure, but they're just patches; they don't address the real issue and don't help on the long run.
The topic is much, much broader than this, but these are some basics. To name a few other things: wrong habits, fear of rejection, fear of success (yes, for real), fear of finding out if you're capable — also for real; if you don't finish, you'll never find out if you're good enough or not and until proven wrong, the current state is comforting for the brain.
What @carlosbranco said, "Imagine yourself in 10 years", is also a really good approach, but I do it the opposite. Really try it. Imagine yourself in 5/10/30 years from now, just as you'd like to become, then think if what you're doing right now is helping you get there. If it doesn't, you know what you have to do.
Amazing job on growing Dependabot! I'm wondering how you acquire users? As a developer, your tool would be very useful but it's not something I would know to search for. Are people looking for "automatic code dependency update checker", etc?
Thanks @TacosToGo.
Raising awareness is absolutely the battle we're fighting with Dependabot, and the best strategy I've found for it so far (that doesn't cost $$$, which we don't have) is to get open source projects using it.
Whenever a new vulnerability is announced in a popular dependency I go around all the big open source projects using that dependency and submit PRs to upgrade it. I create those PRs using Dependabot (on my own fork of the repo) and then also create an issue suggesting the maintainer might want to give Dependabot a try. That almost always goes down really well, and we get lots of big open source projects using Dependabot as a result.
Very nice! Do you look for typos that could lead to malware? ala https://www.zdnet.com/article/twelve-malicious-python-libraries-found-and-removed-from-pypi/
Stop doing so much stuff and focus on max 2 things at the same time. Prioritize by selecting the best ideas. You're burning out your health and focus.
Totally agree with this approach.
The obvious advice would be to pick one and keep at it until you ship...but that's easier said than done.
So try picking two and when you get bored or stuck with one of them, move onto the other. Go back and forth and you'll eventually get both of them done without burning yourself out.
💯 THIS
What's the point anyway? Making a product is only one part of the game. There's a ton of good ideas out there with bad implementation, and probably a lot more good products that nobody knows about. Making just one thing is a full-time job.
The point you're trying to make is an anti-pattern for indie hackers in the valley right now. The hot thing to do is "12 products in 12 months". They want to somehow strike gold by just marking and launching on Product Hunt.
Product without marketing is bound to fail.
That sounds pretty pointless to me. Those guys need a reality check.
Yep!
I have been struggling with the same issues for years! I have finally found a way that seems to work fairly well for me.
I have made a list for side hustles in workflowy (use whatever you want for this). Here I made a sub list for every idea I've got, then I took one day for just writing down all thoughts and ideas for the projects, and picked the one that I felt most motivated to do and gave that some extra days of planning.
Now, while working on this project, I just note down whatever pops into my head about other projects. So basically I'm developing one idea while doing planning on others in parallel. When this project is done I will have a solid plan for the next projects.
When it comes to explore new tech, I pick one new tech for each project. This way I won't spend too much learning several new things at once. This can stall the progress too much and destroy motivation.
This advice works very well for me too. Instead of actually jumping to another project just write down your new ideas/plans for them. In that way after finishing initial project you already have a solid head start and then can happen that initially thought wonderful idea is even not worth pursuing. Also as a side effect then you can judge your N ideas with a lot deeper understanding and choose the next big thing for you more objectively. Then rinse & repeat.
Just posted about this here. Basically, I like having external pressure — a boss, a customer, an investor, or someone who's in a strong position to hold me accountable. I get the most done when I'm in a situation where it'd be embarrassing for me not to, and when the cadence for checking in is ~weekly.
Many people already give advice... anyway:
One project at the time.
Define deadlines. (VERY IMPORTANT)
Start incredibly small. Example 30 minutes per day.
Define small tasks. Make sure you define every single small task
you gonna do before you start. This will save you from making decisions.
Imagine your life in 10 years if you don't take action.
Hope it helps. Good luck.
IMO your problem is that YOU are doing ALL of these things yourself.
Stop.
Take money saved from your job and hire someone to do ALL the things you are doing EXCEPT managing them and providing them with direction. Nothing more.
Become the CEO of your products.
As a person with same skill set as OP, this is VERY hard advice to take (although it is the right advice) . Paying someone else not only costs much more money (people take longer because they don't have the vision you have for your product) but it's also hard to trust someone else to do something for your product that you already do very well. Then you're writing specs and doing code reviews and testing and you're wondering why you don't just write it yourself.
Yea, never said it would be easy :)
Depends on how much you value your own time. Turns out, it can be FAR cheaper depending on your own value.
Because the OP literally can't, according to their own statements:
This opens the possibility of getting it done.
Yup! In other words, your managing your project :)
CTO's, tech leads, senior software devs, etc... these are tasks we all do at "the job" and it works. It works for a reason.
Nothing you've said here changes my original statement, my opinion is that the OP should be working "on" their project and not "in" their project. Become the CEO, manage others, and watch the projects get completed ;)
Make a list at the start of each day that only has items that you can accomplish for that today. Iterate on said list and reflect on what you accomplished that day. It makes your impact measurable each day.
Hi....I have similar problems.... I do three things...1. Keep it Simple, 2. Focus on it. 3. Time .... Make your work and product simple and focus on one product at a time. I am sure that you will be able complete more. and achieve more. Time. Keep all work time bound. Within 3 months I have to complete first product. and so on....
These lessons I learned myself and from others:
Your main gig has accountability built in. (Not getting a paycheck is a pretty big stick.) Your side hustles don't. Find a means to create that accountability... a co-founder, a mastermind group, customer delivery date, or (smiling) IH stand ups.
What works for me:
Let me tell you a practical way.
Draw an Effort-Impact (IE scale) chart like this (https://www.instagram.com/p/BpWdJZ_g8B0/).
Write all your ideas/products on one by one on sticky notes.
Put them one by one on the IE Scale based on what you feel about how much Impact each idea will create and how much Efforts it will require to implement.
Ideally, any idea that falls in the top-left quadrant should be hour high-priority because it creates a high impact and required low efforts. Any idea that falls in top-right quadrant should be your second priority. Make it as a long-term project because it is going to take higher efforts.
This way will help you prioritize the ideas as you seem stuck at which one you should implement first. I hope this helps.
Building stuff on the side takes some discipline, since you have limited time, and you can always kill two hours an evening watching youtube, or reading HN.
I think discipline is a habit you have to develop, through lots of tiny choices that compound. For me, I had the same slew of half-started projects, but never could get anything launched. This year I started thinking more about my habits, and doing little things to strengthen them. Tiny irrelevant-seeming things like, make the bed every day. Then I started getting up at 6 every day, and doing 15 minutes of mindfulness.
I can't draw a straight line from making the bed every day to my first product launching last week after 2 months of development, but I think they're inseparable. :) I didn't have a plan for this when I started, but just recognized my own lack of discipline was keeping me from my biggest goals.
I'm not sure that's actionable advice ;) -- but recognizing that discipline is a habit, and starting to develop it through small choices that you can stick to, I think was key for me.
(Also -- Deep Work is a good book about focus and work. And mindfulness practice is hugely useful for starting to notice how chaotic your normal thought life is.)
I am going through same phases jack of all and procrastinator king. and trying to figure out what will really work for me. Like many have commented. I am planning to make only one ready until its completely ready. Hope , this will make me feel , at least I finished one and get me going in future there after. Don't loose the hope :D
Motivation can mean different things to different people.
For example, it can mean an ability to finish some actions. For that, willpower or accountability can help.
On the other hand, it may mean having the energy to do something or being eager to do it. That's more complicated.
You sound a lot like me!
I'd recommend accountability.
I built a computer simulation of creative work that proved to me I need to stick on one project at a time until it’s shipped (despite constantly thinking of new ideas 💡). Since then I’ve shipped more things. The model is detailed here: http://secretgeek.net/pathos_
Hi,
you make me think of myself. I am also a Software Architect and am great with the technical stuff. So what helps?
One thing I found helpful, are the articles and the poster from Alex Vermeer.
https://alexvermeer.com/getmotivated/
The second thing that I think holds me and you back, is fear and perfection. As long as you keep your projects private, your world is perfect. You think the product is great and everyone is going to love it. But once you publish something, you get feedback, some positive and some negative. The thing is, when you publish something you get a reality check. Your perfect scenario in your mind gets shattered and replaced with reality. And that can be really scary. But if you practice it, you get better over time with handling this fear.
Bootstrapping is a mindset. Trust me no one is going to help you unless you pay them for their contribution.
So, assume that it will take a long time to successfully build a product and take off. Meanwhile you should enjoy the process by taking idea to the working product where your customer enjoys. ( Getting paid customer is obviously needed to run your business but it shouldn't be your primary motivation )
I too have same feeling to skip my current side project and start over new one but my mindset and thought process stops me and get me in right track.
Once you're able to build a idea to project a first time even if it's a failure one, you can reuse the same experience, codebase, logics to build something next easier.
So, your success depends on how many years you're committed towards it. And make sure you're idea has good traction in market ( if not you can just move on to next one but you should be very clear about the traction and customer needs )
Reading this book helped me a lot:
https://www.amazon.de/Dip-extraordinary-benefits-knowing-English-ebook/dp/B004LX0DHC/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1
I think it's a common problem. I have tons of half-baked products. It's a shame. I'm trying to change it now.
One thing I saw that helped me to advance was to use the "Alcoholics Anonymous" technique. One day at a time, every day is a small victory.
In my case, I defined one single project to work and every day I have to produce something planned even if I'm not motivated at all.
I chose a number of hours per day to not hurt my personal life, but I stick with it every single day, including weekends, doesn't matter how stressful or tiring my day was.
It's not that fun, but it's working.
I have had this problem many times in the past and the 2 main things that helped me get passed this were to work on a project that I am passionate about rather than just doing it because I was bored and working with someone to become accountable, in my case this was to start the project with my co-founder but others may just want a mentor and independent person to provide feedback on the current status.
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