Don't get me wrong, a lot of people consider this to be something only for "mad" people, but this is not true. When your belly hurts, you go to a doctor. Why not ask to a doctor when something in your head hurts?
Good psychotherapists can work miracles. I have some good friends that got some great benefits from this. They are very smart and absolutely cannot be classified as mad or even disturbed. Just normal people with some personal problems that a good "doctor of the mind" helped untangle and solve.
Because when your belly hurts, science understands what the possible causes are. Your real medical doctor may be able to diagnose one of those causes and treat it.
When your mind hurts, the existing base of installed psychotherapists belong to a wide variety of non-evidence-based "schools" where "non-evidence-based" means "some guy made up some convincing crap and some other people believed him".
The current "in" schools of psychology are not Freudian or Jungian; they try to treat symptons rather than the underlying cause.
You might have some insecurities regarding your skills or abilities that cause you to avoid getting a project far enough along to prove those fears right (or wrong). If this is the case, the fears conflict with your passion for creating things and cause you stress and unhappiness. Reaching out on this forum for help is a start, but a good psychotherapist can help you figure out how to see these fears when they are hiding in your psyche and give you tools to overcome them.
(Though "madness" can be seen as the limiting condition of bad mental habits.)
We're all clearly disturbed in some way or other, some worse than others, and it's a matter of finding help in functioning in spite of bad mental structures, and learning how to work with/around them, eventually perhaps overcoming them.
Sure, and the fact that we somehow manage to go on, does not imply that we would not be better understanding what weighs on us.
I have a younger friend that is studying surgery, and one of her professors once told to the class: "the best present you can give to yourselves is a good psychotherapy".
Obviously this professor isn't "the truth", but she believes (and I agree) this to be a good advice nonetheless.
Mental problems are maligned and taboo, but a lot of the time, all we really need is someone to talk to. Someone who understands what we are getting at. You might be surrounded all day by people, by colleagues, girlfriends, maybe even kids, but none of them capable of having the type of conversation you need.
The longer I live the less I respect the popular stigmatisations that prevent me from going the simple, obvious way to get what I need - buy it from someone qualified and willing to provide it. A psychotherapist might well be a good means to an end. Who gives a shit, if you end up getting the results you want.
Draw your own conclusions about which other urgent "blocking" requirements, in need of quick solutions, this principle can be applied to.
EDIT: Your IQ is not relevant to your ability to complete projects. It is possible your feelings about your high intelligence is a problem in that it keeps you from being willing to experience failure. These fears should dissipate as you incrementally do complete projects.
My early projects oscillated pretty widely in difficulty when I started. I'd take on something ridiculously difficult (but I didn't know it was ridiculously difficult at the time), and naturally fail at it. Then I'd take the skills from that and do something I knew I could finish. Eventually this converges, and the highs become less ambitious while the lows become more ambitious. I've found that I finish a significantly higher proportion of projects now than I did in college, and their difficulty levels more closely approximate a straight line than a sawtooth wave.
A lot of people are going to have trouble admitting this, but a diligent person of average intellect is about a hundred times more likely to become successful than a lazy person with a titanic intellect.
I can provide examples if necessary.
So, recently, I've tried to change my mindset to what you describe and build something small, useful to me, and that I can finish fast enough that I don't have time to lose interest. And I have a few other bite-sized ideas to do once I'm done with that. (my current tiny project: http://logmeoutthx.com/ I'm not so much interested in the thing itself as in completing it)
Important things:
* start with small things and set a specific completion date/feature spec.
* stop at a point where you know exactly what you need to do next. It's much easier to come back when you do this.
* use org-mode to plan/track your project. I like checking things off. The feeling of meeting mini-goals will keep you going.
Go forth and finish :)
I'm guessing that you are an INTP like me. I am battling the same demon. :(
Here is a description of INTP's that I found...
"Many INTPs are a lot like the stereotypical absentminded professor -- dawdling, distracted, and forgetful of mundane chores, late for obligations, losing homework or library books, and generally disconnected from the business of life in the external world...A big problem for INTPs is that they are so quickly bored, and once their attention wanders, they will rarely finish the many interesting projects they start."
I have been working on my latest project for over a year, part-time. I tend to fall into the research trap as mentioned by some other posters. That is, once I learn how some giant puzzle of a project would come together I lose interest in the project. I suppose I like figuring out things instead of doing things. I am tired of this.
I empathize with the other characteristics you mentioned: "dawdling, distracted, and forgetful of mundane chores, late for obligations, losing homework or library books, and generally disconnected from the external world". But I make a point to finish my projects, or else I feel dissatisfied with myself.
I think part of how I do this is that, although my attention does wander, when I am working on a project it only wanders across little details, rather than large concepts; rather than getting bored with the project itself and moving onto another, I merely get bored of a detail and focus on another (usually completely unrelated, but still within the realms of the vision that is the finished project). After doing this for a while, eventually the entire project is finished, because that is really all it is — a collection of little details. (Of course, this only works if you are perfectionist as I am.)
To be honest, I think that these arbitrary measurements like IQ tests and personality descriptions are irrelevant (and maybe even procrastinations) to solving your real problem. If you want to be able to finish projects, just work on them — you won't know what motivated you in theory until you discover it in practice.
As a side note, to solve my not finishing anything, I make a list of things I am to do during the day each morning and make sure it gets completed. It is important that the items in the list be doable in a reasonable amount of time and that they be measurable.
There is a phenomenon from child psychiatry that has shown that parents that say to a successful child, "Wow, you're so smart" undermine that child's ability to muscle through tougher challenges later on in life. These kids believe they are intrinsically better than their peers, so they don't keep putting effort into themselves. Eventually they encounter a challenge that exceeds their initial abilities and they give up since they don't understand their performance is in their control, not baked into their God-given make-up.
Parents who instead say, "Wow, you put in a lot of effort," teach their children that the success is based on factors that you can control, like how much effort you put in and how prepared you are and what you do. These kids do a lot better in life.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-...
Your problem description (high IQ, creative asset, character flaw) is in the wrong frame. Since we're talking about action, it's not about who you are, but what you do.
Anyway, getting things done is surprisingly simple (not easy). You look at the goal, work backwards thinking of all the things that have to get done to get to that goal, and then start doing them.
Another key part of being successful is to delay gratification. People who need constant positive feedback to keep moving forward don't get very far in real situations since most of life is a slog on the way to a better destination.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...
The final thing that helps motivate action is to know where you want your life to lead. It helps give each smaller project a sense of purpose: does this move my life forward or not? If it does, it's easy to step through things.
Once you have a vision, it's important to continuously repeat in your head all the positive aspects of success. A lot of people focus on the failure or ever the fear of success. As I mentioned above, most real life projects are a grind on your energy and your emotional state. You have to be your own emotional support system.
I liked Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford where he acknowledged how death is a motivator. Life is short. It takes a long time to accomplish anything (5 years or more). So, you only get so many chances (maybe 10) to do something meaningful. You have to always ask yourself, "Am I living this day as if it's my last?"
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
I will say none of these approaches to life are intrinsic to a person. I suspect all successful people have to teach themselves these strategies along the way and they struggle with them the whole way along.
This bears repeating. This kind of thinking (the "self-esteem movement") was extremely popular in school systems in the late 80s and much of the 90s, when someone born in 1982[1] would have been in school. This kind of "I'm not living up to my abilities" panic is common as a result. It conditioned smart kids into thinking they succeeded because they had a special power, so when that power fails to deliver the results they desire, many have problems.[2]
I say "they", but I myself spent some of my early 20s thinking I had somehow damaged my brain at some point, and did a lot of fretting about how I needed to find out the "trick" to getting back to the level of success I felt a person of my talents was capable of. And I know I'm not the only one here.
The truth is there is no trick. You just do stuff. You get more of it done if you actually care[3] and if it's stuff worth doing, but beyond that it's just tactics and micro-optimizations. You learn what works for you, and more importantly what doesn't, but it always comes back to actually cranking whatever widget needs cranking. Only then do you get to exercise your talent and intelligence.
[1]: I assume the date in "kksm19820117" is a birthdate. [2]: These days they call that power "Adderall", but that's another story. [3]: We all have projects that we start because we think we should care, but that don't get done because we don't actually care. Drop them when you spot them. There's no shame in that. You'll free up your attention for the stuff you do care about.
This is defined as ontological guilt, where you don't live up to your perceived potential.
As to this statement... I'm a person that strives when receiving constant positive feedback. My way of addressing this, since the real world doesn't often provide it, is to provide it for myself. For instance, I had to read 2 chapters in my Number Theory book today. I told myself that after each chapter I would let myself read HN for 15 minutes. Now there is positive reinforcement.
Another trick that helps me stay focused is to make lists. I find joy in the simple act of crossing an item off a list.
So to finish a project break it down into simple concrete tasks, and come up with some sort of simple reward for each task finished. Make sure though that your definition of success is actually achievable and dependent on factors you control. After this, get to it, and finish that project!
There's a reason TDD and agile are approaches programmers generally enjoy more, and it's because you get positive feedback early. The success of these techniques are only partially due to their inherent ability to adapt to change: it's also the fact that the people using them are inherently happier because they get this re-enforcement they are going down the right path and making progress.
This is doing the same thing these parents are doing: "I was brought up this way, it's not my fault/I can't do anything about it" ;)
2) write something (do not finish!)
3) release it (minimally, stick it on github or something similar)
4) blog about it (and post the blog entry somewhere where people will see it, aka here)
5) guilt will drive you to make it better
6) work on the project and blog more about it
7) Either people will get interested, you'll start getting links or it won't go anywhere
8) decide whether to continue it or start the cycle over again at step one with a new project
If you do this a few times, I guarantee that you'll have a blog with readership and a better idea of what people want/wnat to work on.
http://mindoversports.com/2009/09/07/why-you-should-never-go...
My advice, as others have mentioned, is to start small ("Hello, World!" if you will).
The solution for me was to partition my work into hilariously small pieces. When I start a project from scratch, my first few tasks are "create the directory hierarchy," "create a repository," "Hello World," and "create exception-throwing stubs for the basic functionality." The idea is to finish early and finish often. If you can't commit a working version every day or two, you may be working on chunks that are too large.
It'll even sound better to your boss! Instead of saying, "no, I am not done," you can say, "I finished X,Y,Z, and W, and I am having trouble with S and R."
Also, stand-ups are for your (the worker's) benefit, not your boss's. It's perfectly fine to say "I did nothing this past day" - your boss doesn't care (well, mine doesn't). But if you say "I did nothing this past day" for a week, you'll begin to feel like you're missing out on something, which is an incentive to look at what you're doing and bite off a smaller chunk of it.
The emphasis is on sustainability - if you can make some small forward progress every day over a long period, the project is more likely to succeed and every one wins.
This simple routine, everyday, has proven to boost my energy and willpower throughout the day and into the near future. It has everything to do with doing something that requires willpower but isn't related to "projects". I've noticed ever since the hot-cold showers that my mettle is considerably more developed.
I highly recommend meditation, that is one of the keys IMHO. It really sharpens your mind - day dreaming is a form of meditation, you don't have to behave like a buddhist monk to meditate. I typically just sit in a comfy chair, close my eyes, and do one of two meditations: either a no-mind meditation (no thought) or a visualization meditation.
b) find something that people can pay you for ie- your first dollar. Without making money, youre running a nonprofit, not a company. even if it's just ad space, put the ads up from the beginning. Money is a hell of a motivator.
c) have a targeted customer/user. you can get feedback from them and it will keep you going. seeing someone enjoy your work is a big motivator. you will feel you cant let them down.
d) try to have it be something that you yourself would use. it will force you to finish the project.
You can do this. I've been in similar spots. Forget potential failure or potential success. Just focus on finishing. Hope this helps and good luck!
Finishing isn't really an intrinsic trait. It's a skill that most of us learn, often quite painfully. Why should those of us who've bothered to learn it have to compensate for the people who haven't?
You're right, everyone loves dreaming up new ideas. However, people who can put those dreams into motion are rare. I'd honestly hire a person who can start a project before putting it off onto some poor slob before I hire the poor slob. Why? Because poor slobs are incredibly easy to find. Starters aren't.
1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.
http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-mani...
This had nothing to do with motivation. I believed strongly in open source software, and loved to code small projects, but never finished anything. I enjoyed writing, and tried no less than 5 times to start a blog. I started building electronic circuits like headphone amplifiers but abandoned them halfway through soldering. No matter how much I wanted or tried to get stuff done, it just wouldn't happen.
A year and a half ago I started taking Vyvanse, which is essentially a slow-release amphetamine salt compound. Since then, I've completed an excellent and productive internship at Apple, shipped two major releases of Quod Libet (an open-source music library application), and am actually making progress on a sprawling thesis, three things I would never have imagined being able to do before. I've even seen a difference socially (I can have conversations that are important to others but meaningless to me without getting bored) and emotionally (I no longer feel like a failure or a waste of potential).
Other people have posted many great suggestions, and by all means, try them. But also talk to a qualified psychiatrist that you trust.
Another comment mentions finding a partner who can finish your work, but personally I think that's horrible advice.
The main things are sharing workload and working as peers. Review each others code, do some pair-programming even if it seems a waste of time to you (or the other person). Feedback and collaboration create action which moves your project forward.
Explain to your partner that finishing is not exactly one of your strengths. They're bound to have weaknesses too, ask them about that and find a way to help them with theirs. For yours, when you find yourself zoning out, getting bored, reading HN, etc, get your partner to do some pair-programming (or testing, documenting, researching, whatever) to get you back on track.
Forget about personality tests, medication and whatnot. Working with a partner will teach you the behavioral patterns you need and a lot more besides.
PG: ... We say "how do we recognize more people like that?" And, there are
start ups that we were fooled by and we think "how do we stop being fooled
in the future?", you know? ...
Andrew: Okay, what about the bad ones? What have you noticed that is
disastrous? What kind of people?
PG: Wimps.
Andrew: Wimps?
PG: Yea.
So my solution is to run/hike http://z.about.com/d/geology/1/0/U/A/bishoppeak.jpg this hill on a daily basis, in hopes of making my self not a wimp. I started today and hope to continue this. My plan is to make it to the top on even days and on odd days I'll do it half way.
At the same time I'm not a finisher either - the interest for me is in finding the solution. The thrill of the chase. Once I've captured my quarry I'm not bothered with it, I'll chase something else.
Unfortunately this means I have problems starting real world tasks where I've already solved them mentally. I also have anxiety about starting before I've completed a mental solution, a sort of perfectionism.
Also, the Internet kind of amplifies the ADD-like tendencies in us all because there are just so many opportunities it can provide for us all.
But second to these would be that you might just be wanting to get things a little too perfect. This is very, very good, but also sometimes you just need to cut the cord, open up your support channel, mark it as beta in an extended period, and just work out the bugs as they go. Oh, and unlike Microsoft -- actually read those bug and problem reports and take them seriously.
I think when OP says incomplete, he means that his projects never acquire adequate functionality to be useful within the necessary context, which is kind of the opposite of your problem; you can't stop working on things, and he can't get himself to work on things long enough.
I find it useful to examine what is left of the project and, GTD style, break it down into next action steps. With the remaining tasks broken down as small as possible, I find it easier to stay focused and knock things out. As others have mentioned, the motivation at this point is often social; I don't want to seem uncapable to others.
Note: If anyone has tried this and think its a horrible idea, please say so. I haven't personally tried it.
I can tell you that if for example I were to buy a chocolate and tell myself that after doing something I could eat the chocolate, then if I can't do it, I will just say f it and eat the chocolate anyway!
Don't be offended. It sucks, but it's reality. Some people do, some people don't.That's the way it is.
/awaiting mass downvotes
Anyway, I'm struggling with pretty much the same problems as the OP, a few years ago I was diagnosed with ADD and was given Ritalin. I didn't like taking Ritalin and it didn't help very much anyway. The thing is you create bad habits, so even if you are taking some meds, you still have those habits and repeat them.
I have now decided that I'm not flawed, but only lost. It seems there's not much place in the world for ADD people. But I'm not giving up, I don't want to change who I am, I want to find where can I fit in and use my strengths.
I just bought the book "Delivered from Distraction" and got it yesterday. Today I read the intro and seems like a good read. I hope it helps.
Firstly, I prefer not to solve /all/ of the hard problems at the start. I try to somewhat polish and test each feature before moving to the next. Otherwise the tail end of your project will become a long slog while you have to force yourself to address all the little things you've put off. It's a massive demotivator.
Also, you really need to break large projects down into smaller pieces. The large project quickly becomes overwhelming and despair can set in. Instead, set out to accomplish a small piece every day. The important thing is to feel like you've done something worthwhile every day, and to have something new to look forward to tomorrow. You'll get used to feeling good about yourself at the end of the day and programming will become addictive.
Usually I think about what I'm going to do that day between hitting snooze or driving to work. I map out what I want to get done in my head. That'll motivate me for the day. Of course, the problem with this approach is I tend to get upset when the day's plan changes. But that's kind of a personal intensity I have to keep in check sometimes.
Lastly, I find I'm pretty motivated by feedback. I want the users to like what I've done, so if I'm having motivation problems it can help to get my programs in front of users. I like to get prototypes in the hands of the right users, ones who'll understand not to expect everything to be done, as much as possible. It'll keep me on the right track.
Of course, there's still those days I have to turn off the bookmarks toolbar and force myself to work on something. Usually that's caused by a roadblock or a decision I haven't yet figured out. Sometimes I have to put my feet up on the desk and just noodle for a while.
Anyway, a lot of this will come with more experience. (Just a guess from your post.) When I started I was overwhelmed with the possibilities and new stuff to learn that I experimented with a lot of stuff, too. Somewhere I still have a project folder filled with just "messing around" projects.
It doesn't matter if those are ever finished, it's an important part of learning. But that was personal stuff... You should finish the work project. :-)
1. It pays the bills.
2. It's fun.
3. It's essential to your health and well-being.
You need to make a living and have fun, but even those should not interfere with your personal welfare. Don't be afraid to let your interests lead you to a more satisfying career path, even if that means leaving the work behind for someone else to finish (or not). And no matter what you do, don't neglect your physical health, because you'll need it to truly enjoy any of your long-term gains.
Also learn to say "No" to others and yourself. Some people accumulate projects like three-legged chairs on trash day. Is it really worth the time and effort? You can't solve everyone's problems and you've discovered that hoarding just clutters up your life. If you're going to dumpster-dive for projects, stick to bright shiny things, stuff that tastes good, or anything that brings easy cash at the pawn shop (metaphorically speaking). Most of the other junk in there is just that: ideas not worth keeping.
To take a real life example- when I was doing iPhone apps, I noticed that a common pattern for me was to lose interest/motivation when all of the ugly details began to emerge from what initially seemed like a simple weekend project.
My way of dealing with this was to always keep a prioritized list of the absolute minimum features I needed in order to ship it. It's always easy to get a little off-track while investigating ideas, so I tried to focus on what the absolute most important aspects were. You can always work on a 2.0 after you ship 1.0, so try to focus on the most important aspects without getting side-tracked by non-essentials.
A) try to get the projects to be as minimal as possible. perhaps you are avoiding finishing them because they don't need the finishing work? relentlessly try to remove as much as possible in order to ship.
B) get things shipped. social feedback and pressure work wonders for motivation.
C) write things to do with a given project on cards, and put the cards out in front of you. as you do the thing, you retire the card to the retired pile. watch it stack up.
D) draw a 2 x 4 grid on a piece of paper and write things that have to be done in the grid squares. as you finish each one, cross it out and put a new item underneath it. when the sheet gets too messy, rewrite it.
No project is actually done. Each milestone must be usable. Keep this in mind.
Don't feel bad if you don't terminate a projet. Failure is ok but don't stop there, start a new project, again and again... until success!
After a decade and a bit hammering away at projects, and probably tens of thousands of great ideas in my head that never happened... I now, regardless of other work, pick one task for the day that I intend to complete. Usually work related, sometimes related to an ongoing project at work, sometimes a personal goal at work, sometimes something completely different - but I set it, and finish it, at almost all costs.
It doesn't have to be big... but you end the day with a sense of completion that you set out to do something, and did it... and at the end of the week, you did 7 things. This becomes natural, and feeds on itself, making you feel better and better and less stressed out about not completing things. As time goes on, I notice I am just naturally getting better and better at picking what those goals are until they become mostly strategic and to my benefit.
I write custom software for a few clients. They're developed continuously, without any hint of them ever being done. The catch is that since very very early they're "working". "Working" is a concept much more useful to me then "finished". Working means it does useful stuff for the people using it. Will there be more development? Sure. Does it matter? Nope.
The only such project I can consider finished is one in which the client company was bought by a bigger company, which came with its own software solution. All development stopped (eventually), but the software is still up and running, used occasionally for its database.
Stop trying to do all by yourself... you are too valuable to spend time actually doing things...
I have the opposite character flaw of finishing everything I start. This is not very good either because sometimes it's better to throw things away. For example I spent 4 years studying economics although I find the subject rather boring. Also the personal projects that I've started stop me from starting other personal projects which also interest me.
My personal project takes so much of my time that I don't work full time as a programmer. I work about 9 months, then go away 6 months and conme back to programming. If the project I am working on is not done after 9 months, another programmer takes over. This is one way in which you could get other people to finish your projects.
I've just started Reading PJ Eby's meta-self-help book Thinking Things Done, wherein he sets up a way of treating one's mind as a knowable predictable system and describes a generalised method for troubleshooting and fixing your own individual causes of problems i.e. what's stopping you from finishing projects, not what often stops many people.
It reads well so far and it feels like it addresses a lot of issues with ra-ra just-do-it believe-in-yourself-help-books, and it takes a practical geeky programmer's view on things too so I'm already very interested; but, er, only four preview chapters are out so far. Sign up to his mailing list to get them weekly as they come out.
1. add meds help a /lot/ as does the use of caffeine to get me through boring parts. (Caffeine, especially is best used occasionally, I've found; if I use it every day, I begin to require it for 'baseline' performance) Usually for me it has been caffeine /or/ add meds. Both together can be bad.
2. work with other people
Other people can keep you on track, and support the project when you are sagging. also, for me the social pressure to not be a drag on the team helps me push towards completion.
3. start a lot of projects.
yeah, the last sounds counterintuitive; but I find that I finish about 40% of what I start; and this correlates almost not at all with my total workload.
4. hang in there and keep trying. it gets easier to finish as you get older. when I was young, I finished maybe 5-10% of what I started.
5. setup your life so that your successes pay for your failures. For me, being a SysAdmin worked very well, as as long as shit runs, nobody is too mad at you for not finishing the awesome management system you had planned, and when shit is broken, it's an emergency, and I don't know about you, but I seem to do pretty well at dealing with emergencies (Obviously, much like caffeine, it can't be an emergency every day.)
Accept now that nobody else is going to be very understanding about this. working for other people will always be a rollercoaster of being hot shit when you finish your projects, and dogshit when you don't.
For this reason, I suggest working for yourself. If you can set yourself up as a product business rather than one that sells your hours, you will be more successful and feel better about yourself. I've managed to do that myself with prgmr.com; As long as I get it right often enough, and my failures are unfinished projects rather than production fuckups, everyone is pretty happy with me, because the unfinished projects were, well, mine. nobody was paying me for that.
I generally pick up new things very quickly which is exciting at the beginning, but then it gets to be boring after a while. Five years after graduating university, the longest job I've held has been 9 months - which I don't consider a bad thing as it's not difficult for a programmer to find work.
I imagine you're like me - you learn very fast and enjoy challenges. When something becomes less challenges and more monotonous, that is when you want to pack it up.
One thing I do for things that are important is commit to working on it for just 15 minutes a day. You would be surprised at how much just 15 minutes a day can add up to after a few weeks. This is similar to Jerry Seinfeld's "Don't break the chain" (You can google it). Every day just do a little bit more. Since you limit the time you spend, you will probably find yourself not wanting to stop after 15 minutes if it is enjoyable. But make sure to stop anyways. Waiting until the next day will allow you to retain the excitement of the project and you will be looking forward to working on it tomorrow.
I would also highly recommend picking up the book "Mastery" by George Leonard. I have never heard anyone describe the learning process as well as him. His word for people like you is a hacker (this book was written well before hacker became mainstream). Hackers pick up things quickly but then quit when they reach a plateau. However, plateaus are normal parts of the learning process. Mr. Leonard says that many people quit when they get to that first big plateau because they feel they are no longer making (rapid) progress. However, he says that you should enjoy the plateau. The plateau is a way of your body saying "Ok, I've learned enough for now. I need to take it all in first before I can move on to the next stage." In fact, a plateau is a way of knowing that big gains will be found just around the corner if you can persist. If you're spiritual, you might think of plateaus as a test to see how much you really want to attain your goal.
Definitely, check that book out. It's very concise and you can read it in a couple hours.
And don't be so hard on yourself. Most people are exactly like you - it's easy to start things, much harder to follow through. Why do you think New Year's Resolutions are mostly a joke?
That's the beginning of the "Hypno-Peripheral Processing" audio course "Procrastination, A Rhythmic Approach, by Dr. Lloyd Glauberman". If you identify with those statements, I would definitely recommend you give it a try. I think it takes more than a few words of good advice to change something that's so deeply ingrained. When I tried it a few years ago, the effect was immediate, and while I wouldn't ascribe it only to that, I'm definitely much less of a procrastinator today.
You may have some reservations about hypnotizing yourself, but it's really not the kind you see on TV. You're actually aware of what's happening, kind of like being semi-hypnotized I guess.
Ironically enough, I never finished the whole course. I was too busy doing all the other things I'd been procrastinating on.
If each task takes 1 day to do, and you do all at once, you will deliver all in 4 days. If you do them one after the other, task 1 is done on day 1, task 2 on day 2, task 3 on day 3 and last task on day 4. So 3 of 4 tasks are delivered ahead of schedule.
'Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain' http://vimeo.com/5895898
"The Now Habit" http://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastination-G...
"The War of Art" http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/04...
"Linchpin" http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/...
All of these books have one thing in common and that is getting used to shipping things. I noticed lately that while I was horrible at shipping my little pet projects I could cook and prepare meals for me and my girlfriend without worry that it tasted bad. I just cook it and good or bad we eat it. I've gotten over the fear of failure here.
Now I just need to get over the fear of failure for my projects.
- Don't look at the eventual goal - it's discouraging to see the long road you have to travel to get there. Instead, focus on the little things you can do now, and make doing those things your intermediate goals.
- Work in short (30 - 45 minutes) bursts. Planning long marathons only makes starting work that much more difficult.
- I keep a small TTD text file ala GTD style to get things off my mind. I usually finish most of the things I put in there. The file contains micro-items that need to be done.
- Focus on getting to the "starting ritual". If I have to work on a website, for example, I just focus on starting the IDE first.
- Start delivering whatever portions of the project you have completed thus far. Don't worry too much about the quality of your work. Instead, simply claim that the work's in its draft or beta stage.
- Have a personal blog, and log every day the work you have put in towards your goals. If you didn't do anything on a day, log that. This is also a great place for you to play your own coach.
- Don't torment yourself over past lapses. Just resolve to start from this moment on.
- Look at your past accomplishments, and affirm yourself of your ability to deliver.
All that being said, the fundamental problem here is putting up with an immediate unpleasantness in return for a potential future reward. If you cannot see a reward clearly, then obviously there's not much point fretting over procrastinating. Just enjoy your present moment!
I also think it might be useful to have an overarching sense of mission - some grand theme - to add an element of urgency that'll keep you going.
In regards to this post, I can connect with you, kksm. You are certainly not alone, it's common to find yourself overwhelmed, especially if you, like myself, are ambitious and love to take advantage of opportunities.
Unfortunately, the downside to this type of ambition is that along with a few great things you make take up, you often take up many "bad" things. By "bad" "things" I mean tasks or projects that you are not motivated to do, or as others here have described, "do not align with your life goals and motives."
I want to repeat JustOnce's suggestion, diligence is critical. Diligence is the mother of success. Look at all of the responses on here--it is evidence that what you are trying to resolve is an issue many people deal with.
Good luck, and don't ever give up. Divide and conquer. Fight for what you love, it is my guess that you are not stupid or lacking any passion in what you do. You may simply be taking on more than you can chew.
* Obsessed over details because I wanted every project to reflect my brilliance. When projects turned out to be decent (but not earth shattering), I would just abandon it rather than finishing it. I didn't want to dilute my image of myself.
* Pulled all nighters before deadlines without doing work. The I would attribute the fact that I did poorly to lack of sleep.
* Didn't ask for help on projects when I actually needed it because I wanted to be considered smart. Didn't ask questions when I didn't understand something for the same reason.
The solution for me was to bombard myself with proof that intelligence doesn't matter. Hard work is the only thing that matters. Intelligence doesn't mean anything if you don't invest the time. How are you supposed to compete with someone working 100 hour weeks when you work 10? You would have to be an order of magnitude smarter than them, and that's just not possible.
So if you're anything like me, you might be trying to cultivate the perception of intelligence rather than proving your intelligence through action. Real artists ship, and real geniuses finish their projects. Don't let the fear of failure or mediocrity stop you from finishing your projects.
(As for the original cause of this behavior, it most certainly was what other people are pointing out. From a young age I had the idea that I was smart cultivated by my parents and my teachers. This community is full of people who received similar treatment. Having such attentive teachers was a huge benefit, but this is one negative side effect.)
For example, I have a specific goal to read 3 chapters in Godel, Escher, Bach every month until I finish the book. I'm also challenging myself in other areas of my life, like eating, running and biking, etc.
Most importantly, though, is that my goals are all very short-term: most of my goals are in 1 month chunks, but some are in 1 week chunks. Only very few are more, and they usually are broken up into sub-goals with 1 month chunks or less.
At my work, we like to create goals and tasks that are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.
There's no way you'll finish something if you don't know how to get to the end, how long it will take you, how much effort it will require, and how it will look when you get there.
As an example, would you make a better farmer or a better chef?
A farmer deals with many short and long term projects: choosing and planting crops that will take the entire summer to grow; looking after the soil over the course of many years by rotating his crops; planning and executing a large scale harvest in the short few weeks that the produce is ripe.
On the other hand, a chef thinks day to day and minute to minute. Planning a menu for next week's meal; finding the ingredients; taking orders from customers as they come in over the course of an evening.
Both these occupations are valuable, but require vastly different skills and mindsets. Maybe you're trying to be a farmer when you'd actually make a fantastic chef!
Then, complete each smaller part or your list. I tend to do the harder projects first, makng my work easier as I progress. If you are having an off day where you know you won't complete something, break it up into smaller tasks that you can complete.
Make sure you have enough time to complete one thing on your list so that it doesn't drag into the next day or whatever time fram you are looking at. Obviously, bigger projects may take longer than 1 day for whatever you are planning you goal to be. This way you still get a feeling of accomplishment, and you work towards something that needs to be done, even if it seems daunting at first.
That would help a lot.
The main takeaway is that motivation has two components, Incentives and Confidence. I could offer you a million dollars to paint a realistic portrait of me, but if you haven't touched paint since kindergarten, you're not going to finish that portrait.
Similarly, you might have the skill to code my next iphone app for me, but you're not going to unless I offer you some kind of payment. (Please feel free to correct me on this one.)
Understanding what incentivizes you and where you're lacking confidence (knowledge, feedback, self-confidence) will help you understand why you're not motivated to complete your projects.
Now I do two things. First I look how to outsource what I can to other people - for example my sister is very detailed oriented so I pay her to do things that would bore me, like writing instructional copy, disclaimers, terms of service, etc
With those activities I can't get off my plate, I sequence them so I am doing fun and boring activities equally. That way I am not over-burdened with boring, tedious, or difficult tasks.
Make sense?
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1139146
Summary: will power is a limited resource, like muscle power, than can be both exhausted and developed.
Different topic is projects I do for work, or for career. In that case, you must be finishing and in my experience nothing works better than a family to go back to in the evening. I used to procrastinate during the day and I'd have to stay at work till late to finish stuff. I don't do that anymore because I realized my wife deserved much better than that. It helped me a lot finding concentration.
It's about writing fiction, but I think we can learn a lot from people who spend years holed up in a loft with a laptop typing out tens of thousands of words that may or may not ever be seen by anyone.
One theme that resonated with me is that you should try to get to something you can vaguely call "finished" as soon as you can: have something on the page that you can then come back and edit, refactor, tinker with. Might help. Good luck.
I try to create some sort of nice image in my head about how it would be if my project is ready. Then I try to recall this image if I see myself tripping off the path. Just to remember myself why I am doing something helps me a lot.
I usually write down the core features. I only allow myself to code something that is not on the list if I earned it by working on something on that list the same day.
Perhaps you should take a look into some parts of the XP (extreme programming) philosophy. One idea is that you work in iterations and that every iteration should produce something usable. In theory you could stop at any point and should have something 'finished'. In theory...
http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/b4faj/i_need_to_find_o...
but with your CV http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AVHgzAaQYmIOZGdqanFjMjlfMm... , you shouldn't have a problem. Maybe your work does not motivate you or you too much of a perfectionist.
Are you a vegetarian? Maybe you don't have enough energy? My suggestion grub a jug of coffee, order a pizza and post the Project here on Monday.
So try writing instead of coding.
A common pattern in that area: not finishing a project avoids any confirmation that the idea itself was bad, because the idea is not really unvalidated, as the execution isn't complete.
Any way to reinforce the inner confidence is helpful here. In my case, non-violent communication (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1892005034) has been very helpful to understand the inners of procrastination.
Understanding "brain bugs" as I call them is a fascinating and rewarding road :)
The solution is also simple: Just do it. Treat it like a job. Understand that it's not going to be fun. Passion burns brightly and then fades away. You're going to need to make a schedule -- a routine you can build your life around. Work on the project for, say, three hours a day. Then it's just a matter of grinding out the weeks and months until your done.
Have any of your unfinished projects actually been good products? It's one thing to have a side project and play with a new technology over the weekend- that's cool, but it isn't a product. It's like when people post 'Ask HN: Review my startup!" and it's some twitter app they threw together in a weekend. That's not a product, it's a side project. Side projects can turn into products over time, but it's usually a tough transition.
A product has to be marketed. A product has to have you communicating with customers. A product needs a price.
As for the not finishing stuff at work... That sounds more like burnout to me. If you aren't passionate about your job start looking for a new one!
I also enlist the help of friends. I tell people about the projects that I want to finish, and I keep them up to date about them. If I slack off, they ask me "so, how's it going on that project?" One friend of mine has agreed to punch me if I don't finish one particular project.
I have more than 100 open projects in my hard drive right now. Had thousands more in older pcs and floppies that I abandoned when new technology arrived, from basic to pascal, C, java, python, ruby, etc. Right now, only in node.js I have like ten projects open.
So, am I worried about never finishing them? not at all.
I see them as learning projects, they filled an empty slot in my brain which expanded my knowledge and experience.
They call it 'the next shiny thing', I call it learning.
Look! Flusspferd!
- me opens another project -
Second, you need to make sure that you're working on projects that are actually worthwhile. It's no sin to stop working on a project if it's not worth it, you need to make sure you prioritize which projects are actually worth getting done.
Third, you need to av~ ooo, a shiny, I'll finish this later
The book is composed of quick strategic/tactical lessons for fighting the battle against Resistance - that ever-devious foe that draws its strengths from our weaknesses.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/04...
http://www.procrastinus.com/ - has some theories and treatment - http://webapps2.ucalgary.ca/~steel/Procrastinus/treatment.ph...
Good luck.
Some people are really good at starting and creating new projects up until they get the guts of the project right and then gradually lose interest.
Other people can't really come up with anything by themselves but given a start, will gladly work to finish it and become experts while at it.
Set small goals, and celebrate success.
You need to learn to make a small project that does very little then build on that.
If you have a project you need to get done at work, do it by doing the dirtiest hack possible that gets it done, then improve it in steps while you have time.
2) read "talent is overrated" to understand why IQ is useless compared to being able to work hard for a long time
Also, I have heard that Ritalin and Adderall are good for this sort of thing. Seriously. You've got to fight chemistry with chemistry.
There is a reason human beings gravitate towards one another. We are not meant to live, work, or play alone (though some people are better at it then others). I would suggest taking a look at how you are approaching projects from the get go. Are you tackling everything worthy of being called a "project" all by yourself?
You mentioned you have a track record of shame that forces you to seek help. Why are you waiting until everything is falling apart to ask for help? Have you ever tried asking someone to help you out with a project from the beginning? I don't think there has ever been a circumstance in my life where someone has asked me for help or I have asked someone else for help and the answer has been, "no".
That's my 20,000 feet view at what I imagine might be your issue based on the very small information I know about you. You could also look into some of the other character traits that people who DO finish projects have:
Organization: Are you organized? Do you stay organized throughout the project or blow your load for the first week and everything is essentially in shambles the rest of the project lifecycle?
Planning: This is in many cases one in the same as organization, but do you plan before hand? Do you turn that planning into a list or tasks, milestones, or any other form of breaking something big down into a bunch of smaller and easier to obtain tasks?
Focus: Do you over extend yourself or do you focus on one thing at a time? Again, this is very closely related to organization and planning. I've often taken on too many projects and the results are never good; things are rushed, quality lessens, and every now and then a deadline is even missed.
Communication: Do you talk to everyone involved in the project throughout the project lifecycle? Do you set realistic expectations? How in the know is everyone involved in the project other then you? Is your process transparent to everyone else working around you? I'd highly suggest at least doing one small thing if you change nothing about your process: Pick one person at the beginning of your project, it doesn't matter who they are (in some cases this person is your boss and expects this of you anyway), and decide you are going to update them every day/week/whatever on how you are doing with said project. Even if it's a friend, it doesn't matter, the process of doing this will really help you keep things together. It almost turns into project management therapy.
At the end of the day however, while all of these things are great to focus on and improve on, you can't do any of this alone. People are not weak for asking for help, they are stronger, and personally I respect them much more then the lone warrior who is either too scared or too cocky to ask for help.
It all boils down to persistence, diligence, and work. As others have said, intelligence has nothing to do with it. Intelligence can sometimes be a negative because a) creative people often flit from idea to idea and, b) it can breed perfectionism--the killer of finishing.
I agree with many of the other posters (including pg) that you should start small and get a feeling for what it's like to finish. It also helps to talk well to yourself. The subconscious has a powerful sway over our feelings of self-esteem, unwitting self-sabotage, etc. Napoleon Hill and others talk about this. The self-talk can seem cheesy but it works, and completing small things gives you a foundation for this.
As for larger projects, there are a few important considerations. First, you must pick a project you believe in and will be willing to commit part of your life to (6 months?, 2 years?...). Next, you must be willing to put aside other ideas and projects in favor of it (mostly). As long as you are moving forward regularly, you can make exceptions, but you must have only one main project.
Next, you must break your project down into milestones. This is common sense and well understood if you program for a living. Each milestone has to be measurable so you can tell when you're done with it (and check it off). I know this sounds basic but the reason everyone keeps repeating it is that it works. You should also do something, however small, every day. Google Seinfeld's breaking the chain post on lifehacker for a technique to use here.
Finally, it helps to have a powerful motivator attached at the meta level to your project. This can be accomplished by partnering with someone. (Partnering has the benefit of helping to establish and maintain momentum. This is very important but can also be addressed through daily activity, as described above.) For me, it was hitting near bottom financially while living abroad. I had taken my family to live in Europe without the help of a company. We did it ourselves by saving and borrowing for two years--a very difficult undertaking. When this occurred, I swore to myself that I would never allow that to happen again. Every step since has been focused on the goal of financial independence. It has become an obsession. So I have a strong motivator to attach to projects. It sounds like you have a strong motivator as well. It really needs to become a daily obsession.
In order to feed my obsession, I read books about it and about people who have overcome similar situations. This keeps it in the forefront of my mind and week by week I'm also building a better and better knowledge base of how other people have accomplished the same thing. With this motivational force behind you, when you turn to your primary project, it's easier to move it forward a bit.
Surprisingly, wealth building and doing great things (building non-profits, etc.) all have very much in common. They are built by achievers. Achievers are merely people who move things forward little by little--relentlessly.
Many times we dump a project because we get all excited about something new and the cycle starts again.
I wish I could tell you, and I myself, that there is a simple solution to this problem, but there isn't. You just need to stick to a current project and don't allow yourself to get dragged into a new one. Find reasons to complete the current project, try to remember why you even started working on it in the first place.
Another thing I suggest you should do, is list your goals. Define completion. And I suggest you leave previous projects alone, because there is no point of fighting the past, stick with the present.
Hope this helps.
In order to stay on point with the daily mp3 project, I bought an iPhone app called Streaks and marked an X on my calendar every day I made an mp3. Soon I was posting mp3s every day like clockwork. Since it worked so well, I started adding new calendars. I quickly had more calendars than Streaks could handle and the app slowed to a crawl, so I switched to a paper calendar on my wall and some thin Crayola markers. I now have, and have had for months, a daily real-time paper dashboard of how all my habit-generating projects are proceeding.
The key is to focus on generating habits rather than accomplishing goals. To understand why, consider the phenomenon of passive income. Passive income is money which comes from projects that make you money. A person who works at a job trades time for money. A person who builds passive income projects decouples time from money, and puts their time into building something which will, once built, generate money for them autonomously.
Every programmer should know that tight coupling leads to bad OO design. It also leads to bad business structure. Passive income wins over working for a living because you get a much more enjoyable lifestyle. Instead of working to make money, you create things, and those things make money for you.
In the same way that passive income gets you money on autopilot, when you focus on habits instead of goals, you accomplish your goals on autopilot. You decouple time from money with passive income; when you generate the right habits, you decouple effort from results. You put a little time in to create a passive income project, and thereafter it generates money for you; you put a little effort in to create habits, and thereafter your habit gets results for you.
When I got in the habit of creating mp3s every day and marking each daily mp3 on a calendar, I didn't just establish the habit of making music every day. I also established the habit of completing a tiny project every day. This is the part that changed my life. Over the past year, I have morphed from a completely disorganized person into an unusually organized one. I used to never even make a to-do list; now I have an original planning and organizing system with three separate layers. All this happened because I started by establishing the habit of completing projects.
When the mp3 thing started working well and I started tracking many other desired daily habits, I created a pattern of working to complete small tasks every day. The brain is a fantastic pattern-matching machine, and if you focus on creating habits, your brain will generalize out to broader things. Since I was in the habit of tracking my music and my workouts, I soon fell into the habit of tracking how often I ate the way I wanted to eat and even how often I put gas in my car. Once I had established these habits, of tracking nearly everything on paper, it became absolutely trivial to make and complete to-do lists every day, and to track my finances, my weight, and my sleep schedule on a daily basis.
Remember, this took me a year. But all you have to do to get started is pick one thing you really care about, more than anything else, and make a deal with yourself that you will do at least one tiny bit of work on that one thing every single day. Put that on your calendar, mark an X on the day every time, and don't break the chain. That's the Seinfeld method (google "Seinfeld Lifehacker"). If you want to expand that method to something more sophisticated like me, it will be easy to do, AFTER you have taken the time to establish this habit of completing one tiny project every single day.
If you do what I just told you, your problem will be solved for the rest of your life.
