As far as learning new “things”, it depends on what those things are.
I’ve been working in the AWS + app dev consulting space for six years and have been working with AWS for around 10. I know CloudFormation for infrastructure as code well and started using it in 2017. As I got more into consulting, I knew that eventually I was going to have to learn Terraform and the AWS CDK. Last year, two projects came up where I had to use both respectively.
I was able to one shot both with a detailed set of requirements I designed with ChatGPT. Why bother learning either? I know system design on AWS and how to verify the correctness of the output.
The second anecdote. I haven’t done any web development in decades and always wanted to get back into it enough at least to do internal websites. I have a good sense of UX and putting myself in the shoes of users. Now with v0 and coding agents, why bother? My goal was never to be a great web developer. I just wanted to create usable internal tools.
My entire focus over the last decade was to become more architectural and customer focused in consulting. I’m glad I did and those two areas have kept me employable and have been most of learning focus. Before AI, I delegated the grunt work to more junior developers, now I delegate it to AI.
As far as where my focus is at now 50+ outside of staying employable? I’ve been a gym rat since I was 16 (including a 15 year previous stint as a part time fitness instructor), and I spend my free time learning Spanish for my eventual retirement out of the country (motivation enough to get the f** out of dodge) and near term starting this year, we will be spending a few months in our target country every year - we just came back from spending two months there.
Feedback meaning you have definitive endings (post it, journal it, etc) to your period of “doing stuff”. Cycles meaning you repeat this over time.
Compounding effort meaning that “doing stuff” in one cycle lets you do new or more complicated things in the next cycle.
Motivation is often just the momentum you get from succeeding. For independent work, you can define your own success criteria. The methods above are helpful for feeling successful.
I don't know how, but some months ago I found the motivation to read some technical Software books (never happened before).
I’ll admit I’ve wasted a lot of time doing nothing (like videogames or useless YT videos), but honestly, finding an ally like AI has helped me overcome the barrier of ‘I’ve never done this before, it’ll take too long just to learn it.’
Instead just get started with the smallest possible step you can just about manage to do. And then do another smallest step. A lot of times you almost automatically keep going and the motivation then arrives.
Maybe the first step is to create a basic "Hello World" application. And then a few empty functions/methods that flesh out what the app needs to do. Then maybe a few of those methods/functions are really easy to do (or AI can write them for you) so you quickly do those. Etc.
Now, the other case, I have a newborn. Now with two kids I am highly motivated. Also, with AI, not knowing a language is not a stopper anymore. So I made a pretty descent Android application for monitoring elderly people, that runs 24/7 despite Android is trying to kill it all the time, without practicing the language. Knowing that I can do it, seeing the results, having the responsibility sleeping behind me, gives me good reasons to continue. :)
Also what are our alternatives? Because of AI, I am not sure that I will have a job after one year. If I can do an android app with 400+ source files for 4 months, with 2000 unit tests, then it might happen that my employer reduces the working force, because there is not enough work for everybody. If don't have a back-up plan, what will I do?
If I still find myself tired and not motivated, I get another cup of coffee and continue :D :D
Over the years my goal changed from being a software wizard to having $x.xm in my bank account by the time I am 50, thus securing my daughter's education all the way through college. Every time I don't want to join the 999th call of the week on "how we can better work together", I look at her picture and realize who I am doing that for - discipline.
For doing tech stuff... Yeah I don't know. Amateur radio is techy without a lot of AI.
It doesn't have to be a negative thing. Adaptation is evolution. Some people are inherently high agency and driven internally, but others need a specific reason to move. Pragmatic fear happens to be the reason that works for me, whether it’s to take care of my family or just to keep up with my friends.
If you're protecting your attention and still facing motivation issues, then I'll need to know more about you to understand the root of it.
All we can do is stab in the dark/speculate given what you've shared. I only pointed at media because these days it's the most likely culprit.
But motivation in general? Let it find you. When you see "hey, I really want to do that", well, that that's motivation. You want to do that. You don't have to manufacture motivation - you have motivation.
And once you have motivation, if you want to experiment with using an AI as you do it, that's fine. If you don't, that's fine too.
That's my motivation.
I don’t think AI is the problem here.
Pre-LLMs, what motivated you? Why did you do what you did?
To me, AI is a bit like a dishwasher or a spreadsheet: a labour-saving device for the things I don't enjoy doing. It handles the tedium so I can do more of the fun stuff. It also removes the friction from learning stuff. At times it feels like a real world pokedex, or an iteration of Steve Jobs' bicycle for the mind.
Remember to play too. Coding for money makes you forget why you got into it in the first place. I love cooking and making watercolours because I never expected to do it professionally or even for money. Sometimes it's good to just fuck around with no expectations of productivity. Do stupid things, mess up, have fun!
