Having a hard time staying motivated?
Trying to learn from folks who are having a hard time sticking w/ what they're working. I want to understand how to better help a few student makers.
What are you doing right now to keep track of your progress?
Are you sharing your progress with anyone (even if it's just a friend or s/o)?
Thank you! ❤️
I typically lose motivation when I experience an emotional hiccup. Say I get up the courage to post something online about my project, and no one answers for an hour. Anxiety and self doubt kick in and I find myself wondering if what I'm doing is useful, if I should be doing something else, and the next thing I know I'm watching dumb YouTube videos to pass the time telling myself I'll get back to it later.
Emotions are the elephant in the room of productivity and for people with a strong emotional response they can destroy every step of progress. Reading the "Highly Sensitive Person", "The 4 Tendencies", meditation and Wuju, the app I'm working on (wujuapp.com) are what I use to get through those moments.
I share my progress with my wife and a good friend of mine, but they get tired quickly of my constant need for updates, so that's only marginally helpful.
Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful response with me, Eli! I'm so glad to hear that you're making something to help others like you. I love that. And it's incredibly generous to offer others so much of your own time and expertise with a Wuju subscription.
The emotional hiccup you explain is exactly what I'm trying to better understand. It's something that really gets in the way of kickass people carrying on something that matters to them.
If I pick a time from your calendar on Wuju, might it be okay to learn more about what you're describing?
Zero worries whatsoever if not :)
Of course you can, that's what the calendar is there for!
Thank you so much, Eli. Looking forward to learning from you!
I make lists every single day and my goal is to get through it! I love when I can cross something off it.
That's what I do, too, Katherine. I'm not sure where I would be without Todoist :)
Just curious ... are you working on making anything right now? (I just checked your profile, but I didn't see anything.)
I am not right now. and my profile is also pretty bare on here. I just joined 2 days ago. How about you?
Well, I look forward to learning about what you're making when you do!
I teach design, and I'm working on a few little products. One of them has been especially fun. We're trying to help makers build their audience as they build their product so that they can make money faster. Who knows what it'll turn into, but lots and lots of exciting learning happening.
My motivation dips the most after building the MVP in most cases. After putting all that energy into the design and engineering the marketing and promotional prelaunch period really feels like a kick to the face. To keep myself motivated I just always ask myself, "Would I use the product I just built?" In most cases my answer is yes.
For tracking progress, I mainly try to set some quantifiable monthly goal for myself whether that be the number of new users or web traffic I get. If you zone in on one thing it tends to make you more productive since it gives you a more clear short-term vision of success for that month (that is not to say however that you should ONLY judge success based of short term metrics, but it definitely helps break down larger goals into smaller ones).
I just checked out Vailable, and it looks very awesome, Jason! I read your Product Hunt post, and everything you're writing about is exactly what I hear from students. (I teach w/ a few colleges as a design instructor).
Often, with everyone's very hectic schedule, it's incredibly difficult to coordinate meeting times with more than two or three people. I just shared it w/ the students I have in my class Slack channel.
What you've shared about your progress is very, very helpful. I'm trying to learn more about how college students like you actually get those things done, and I have a few more questions. Might it be possible to set up a time to video chat for 15 minutes? (Or phone, if you're sick of video-ing.)
If that might be okay (and zero worries whatsoever, if not), I'll just share a link to my calendar.
I would love to chat! I'm more free after May 6th if that is okay, but for now I would be happy to connect over Twitter for now (@wu2153).
Followed! Thank you so much, Jason. I just set a calendar reminder to send you an email then.
I read that your internship for the summer was canceled. I'm very sorry. That seriously fucking sucks. I think that JobHash is a seriously kickass project. A number of the students who I work with have experienced the same thing, so I just shared your link w/ them in our Slack. One of them is especially grateful because she's been having a hard time keeping her applications organized.
I keep a weekly objective board where goals are set at the beginning of every week and assessed at the end. Some weeks are tough to swallow. But signs on progress provide just enough dopamine to get back on the horse.
Not sure if that's a healthy way to work, but it's keeping me at least on my toes week after week.
Thank you so much for sharing such a kind and thoughtful response, Justin.
I just checked out your site, and Quidli looks very neat. And it looks like you're making some seriously kickass progress. I just shared it w/ some of the students (I'm a design instructor) who love keeping up with Bitcoin things. I think that they might love what you're doing. (They've mentioned a number of times in passing the desire to "share" their investment.) Woot!
I'm curious ... for Quidli, what's the biggest need you're having a hard time with? Like, if you had/could find/could learn __________, it would take your business to the next level?
For Quidli, what would go in the blank?
Appreciate the shares!
As for the blank, that's a cool question. I'd say 'communication' - as in how can we make our explanations about Bitcoin and its management even simpler so that non-crypto people get even more excited about it.
Gotcha! And I think given how it's a confusing space to a lot of folks, keeping things simple is super important. Sounds like a most excellent plan.
Is there anything specific that's confusing in the space for you?
Oh, good question! To be honest, I'm not particularly interested in the space itself. I think it's possible that I may be Earth's most boring investor. BUT, luckily for you, there are many, many potential customers who are quite the opposite.