"Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.
If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack—rack—that’s Navy talk for bed.
It was a simple task—mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened SEALs—but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.
If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.
By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.
If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.
And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.
If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed."
[1]: http://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/05/16/admiral-mcraven-commen...
Personally, a method like this works for me. On days where I make the effort to wake up earlier and get in some exercise/a workout, I find I'm more prepared and motivated to handle the day. Of course, there is the tangible physical benefit, but there's also a psychological one as well - having accomplished Just One Thing, the momentum builds and you can feel more confident to handle the day - it's like a multiplier effect. (Now of course, there is a limit, a happy medium; if one were to wake up and run an ultra in the morning, one might not be so prepared for the rest of the day)
These are just my personal anecdotes, but I imagine there is some commonality across individuals. Find what works for you. Whether it's making your bed or a workout, it doesn't matter: The experience of breaking down jobs into manageable tasks will be extremely useful in any future situations.
I'm not a strong TDD guy, but when I'm feeling a bit slouchy (or even overwhelmed) I'll often start with unit tests to get the ball rolling.
I think while taking the approach of 'finish something today', one should consciously avoid falling into the trap of avoiding consequential tasks.
To cover your bed as soon as possible is not a so good idea in fact. The dust mites will love be carefully protected of the sunlight and trive on your perfectly square bed giving you more probability of develop asthma and alergies. Not a good thing if you need to run for your safety, or to avoid to snooze in a inconvenient time. Some countries have more bed bugs than others.
I'll better try to stay creative; there is more than one way to do a bed.
My first paid-for application commissioned by a client. I even drummed up a small manual for them, before sending out the "It's ready." email with the manual attached and a link to the installer download.
Not bad for a Monday morning!
It wasn't a big application, and did one specific thing. But it'll improve their (business) life dramatically. Bonus: I get to send them a juicy invoice. Bonus II: I just discovered I /love/ developing for paying clients B)
We're evolving, not finishing.
Obsessing over finishing something every day can't be useful or necessary. Could be distracting.
The haiku-styled self-help thingy here is lacking depth.. it's generic motivational cliche central. It's corny stuff.
Sounds like a form of OCD. The same people couldn't bare to leave the dirty dishes til the next morning.
Relax. You don't need to finish something today for the sake of "finishing".
You can subscribe to the journey or the destination, choose one, but don't push what you choose onto others and call it "Hacker News".
"Ship one thing today".
Ah... nope. And I don't ship. Never understood the obsession with "shipping". It suggests a commercial operation, a red-button launch, manufacturing and selling washing machines.
This should actually help a lot of people.
Something stupidly simple that has helped me a lot is to make a list of the individual to-do's. I like to have a master list for the project I'm working on, and a daily one I make in the morning, with each point small enough that I can accomplish one in a matter of minutes or hours.
The act of crossing a single item off - and then over time looking at the list and seeing a whole bunch of items crossed off - is amazingly effective for me. I am able to focus on the next 10 feet rather than fainting at the thought of a 10 mile uphill climb. I can hardly believe something so simple has gotten such results on such a critical and daily issue. But it has.
Maybe this could help your SO? I don't think it's a stretch to say making lists has changed my life.
I learnt _a lot_ about how vehicles work from those days. It was fascinating working on machines like that from first principals. Every single thing was stripped down and rebuilt from several dead vehicles. Even every last washer was cleaned up and reused.
One of my main take aways was actually his approach to working on the projects. Every day he would complete at least one thing on each project. Sometimes it was as small making a phone call, or as large as fitting the engine into the chassis.
It might have taken a couple of years but he got there in the end.
That said, it's still amazing work. When some friends built a Lemons car (nowhere near as exacting), I was surprised to find that probably 75% of our time and communication was inventory management and organization. You think you're going to be welding and spinning nuts? No, you're going to be heading back to the store for more acetone and Sterilite boxes while your friend spends hours sorting parts looking for the !#$*@ headlight switch.
After 35 years of working full time fixing motor vehicles I guess you have a pretty clear picture of how everything comes apart and goes back together again.
After he'd reconstructed the engine we were about to hoist it in the car and I asked how he was sure it was to work. He said that because he'd put every last part in himself (after reconditioning them) he could guarantee it to be correct. To humour me he fired it up while it was still on the ground, started without any problem.
> RELEASE IT TO THE WORLD.
> If you don’t have an idea, imitate something else.
> You will think it’s not important enough.
> You will think nobody will care.
> You will overestimate its importance.
> You will sometimes fail.
Counterpoint: Instead of focusing on quantity ("hack it together and ship it", "ship it today", "finish it and release it to the world", etc.), let's take a step back and think about quality. I have personally been bitten from having to maintain side projects that I shipped prematurely just to "finish them".
I'm not saying you shouldn't finish things, however I do think there's value in raising standards for what you consider "finished", and that finishing something every day is a goal that is likely to be at odds with those standards.
Two articles that I recommend reading:
1. Generation Javascript by Manuel Bernhardt (http://manuel.bernhardt.io/2014/12/30/generation-javascript/)
2. A Generation Lost in the Bazaar by Poul-Henning Kamp (https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257)
IME, people hit a point where they start introducing quality or breaking down bigger tasks because their goal requires it. You don't need to encourage that so much as just getting them doing something in the first place.
Compare to the classic advice to set an egg-timer for 5 minutes if you're having problems getting started with something. 9 times out of 10 you'll continue and finish it after the timer goes off, but makes it much less intimidating to start if you know you can legitimately bail after 5 minutes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_ju...
However for me the trick is to get that initial push to start the work, even if the effort itself is small and manageable. It's hard for me to get motivated.
Most with creative side-projects suffer the same trouble as you and I: trouble starting. I try to remind myself of how good I'll feel after, and also limit my time to 45 minutes on the computer - thereby avoiding sinking an entire weekend into something that resembles "work".
I gave this method a try and it's been great. It helps me stay on task, have goals, and feel good about what I've accomplished. It helps me minimize the "swamped" feeling because I'm actively prioritizing and then knocking those things off the list.
I'm currently trying to do a weekly snippet e-mail to myself, and additionally every morning I make a mini, unofficial snippets of what I'd like to accomplish for the day (generally taking items from the weekly snippets).
Sites like "finish one thing today" calls out again that constant struggle between curiosity and focus. My natural curiosity has been a huge benefit in my life but it certainly gets in the way sometimes when I need it to turn off so I can just focus on the problem at hand.
Life's funny that way.
http://rrhs.schoolwires.net/cms/lib7/WI01001304/Centricity/D...
(to clarify because internet + downvotes: this is a joke about not finishing the article about finishing things - I did actually read it!)
why is this site trying to make me lazy?
and if I don't want to finish something, then I won't. I'm not a machine, I want to have some days off, usually not enough.
but when I can, I enjoy spending a whole day on the sofa doing nothing. you should try it, it's nice
http://ejohn.org/blog/write-code-every-day/
He set himself similar rules.
