[muhrizqiardi]

F*ck it, I'm not gonna sugar coat it.

I was supposed to be working on a project called Tagbox... but it feels like it's never gonna see the light of day. I hope I'm wrong though, I still want this to succeed, for once in my life, I want to actually succeed on at least one thing. I want to contribute some good thing to the society.

First, what is it? It's a bookmarking app alternative to Pocket or Raindrop.io. Yeah, you can already tell it's not the most original idea. What makes it different, though, it's supposed to be self-hostable and additionally it's easy to deploy as it's only single binary file with no other runtime dependency--the database uses SQLite, which you can include it as a library in Rust.

What problems I'm facing while developing this? Honestly? I don't know, but I can't finish the last 10% progress of the app. It's funny--I first wrote it in Go, and it almost reached MVP. But, instead, I decided to just rewrite in Rust. Well, at least I got to learn new language while building this app, two birds one stone, or in Bahasa Indonesia, swimming while drinking water.

But now, I just can't force myself to continue. And I don't know why. Maybe perfectionism? It definitely doesn't have to do with skill though.

There are also another thing I'm working on: recovering from depression. One year ago, out of nowhere, I lost all my motivation doing anything--including university. I lost all my friends. Since then, I'm at the lowest point of my life. I visited psychiatrist multiple times. I don't know if it was effective, but recently I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Tagbox Project is also one of the efforts for me to recover from depression. The depression phase made me realize that I _want my works to have a positive effect on the world, even for just a little bit_. I don't want my skill to be used for evil companies that throws away moral and ethics. Specifically AI stuff, but that's OOT of this thread.

Here are the links if you're interested,

https://gitlab.com/muhrizqiardi/tagbox_rs/

This link is only the Rust rewrite version. The original version is private right now.

[frankdenbow]

Hey there. Been where you have been and can safely say, there is always a way out of it.

Sounds like you just need a bit of consistency to make some progress. I'd be down to chat once a week for 15 minutes and we can figure out the focus for the week. Hit me if you think that would be helpful, sounds like you can build some good stuff.

[tehs2]

If there's one thing I've learn over the last few years is that it's incredibly difficult working on a project when you don't have peace of mind. It can be difficult working on something or staying motivated when you're battling depression, or if you're sad, don't have friends, or if anything is troubling your mind.

I've been there and I know what it feels like. I would try to perhaps solve the mental health problem first perhaps before tackling big projects. Maybe try gym, hiking, somehow finding friends, talk to more people, solve your sleep, eat better - something. Because again, if you don't have peace of mind, working on a project is difficult (at least for me it is).

Hope that helps.

[GoToRO]

Even without the other problems, I can assure you that the vast majority of managers will think that a 80% done project is almost done. The truth is the remaining 20% is where you have to fit everything together so you revisit an rewrite most of the project. It's a different kind of work that feels boring because you already did those things maybe 3,4 times already. It helps to understand the phase of the project you are in, to reduce the frustration. It also helps to do something even very small, every day and focus on that. One day you will run out of things to do.

[takinola]

Seems like you are discovering the truism that the last 10% of a project takes as much time as the first 90% of the project. In my experience, it is always a slog to ship a product. What you are feeling is normal and the experience of many developers. You should plan for this part of the project and figure out ways to motivate yourself to ship something.

[ukuina]

It took a long time to train myself to ship at the 80% mark and simply walk away to let it germinate. Over time, you cultivate a garden of nearly-done projects that are all ripe for expansion or rewrite.