Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by spuds 588 days ago
I struggle with this myself, especially around writing. My solution, from a coding perspective:

If I had a massive new app to build, it would indeed feel overwhelming if I felt like I just had to sit down and build it. I think we get extra stuck on that with writing, as it often feels like we just need to go from an empty page to a well-reasoned and edited blog post, with a lot of ambiguous struggle in between.

With programming, I start breaking it down into pieces of functionality, and smaller ones, until I have a list of concrete things I can actually get my head around and write the code for. I keep on doing those small things, build the structure around them, and eventually I have my app.

I do the same with writing now. Not an outline really, but a list of concepts I want to get across, then smaller ideas. I write out a few of those, often a paragraph at a time. The structure starts to reveal itself, and soon enough I have a new blog post.

I think the key here is arriving at something small enough that it doesn't feel overwhelming. New app or blog post feels like way too much in the moment, and my body and mind to everything possible to avoid it (procrastination). Writing out a paragraph, coding a function - very doable.

3 comments

I agree with this, but when working with a team I always feel motivated to see the progression made. Rarely do solo developers work well with others and rarely do collaborative developers work well by themselves. It really depends on the dynamic of the environment and the goal of the team.
Which is a pretty pickle when you’re trying to hire devs. A candidate with a large GitHub repo may actually not be the team player you’re looking for.
>a large GitHub repo

I feel like in SW, impact and quality should be a lot more valuable than quantity of repos/apps you write. A few lines of code that fix a Gnome/KDE/$BIG_FOSS_PROJECT bug would be a lot more valuable in my book, than say another one in the millionth pile of JS note taking apps, or a repo full of "Baby's first Rust app"

I spent 1-3 hours every other Friday for six months writing a three line monkey patch to fix a (lack of) clipping bug in a drag and drop library that wasn't taking PRs because they were going to rewrite everything (and were 18 months into a 1 year rewrite and only half done).

I'm not going to name names but it rhymes with jQuery UI.

The best I could do was attach a code snipped to a bug report. I've gone back and forth about whether that should count as participation but for that case it's the most calendar time I've ever put into a line of code and you're goddamned right I want to count it.

Based
Great points! Sometimes setting what feels like a lower bar for what you want to accomplish is the best way to get things done.

"I'm just going to spend like 20 minutes writing out this small feature and then call it a day", and doing that like 50 times throughout your side project, will result in a completed side project! :)

Even if it feels really lame, I catch myself thinking: "Well that's not very much to get done," I force myself to knock it out. If I can compare a small feature to emptying the dishwasher -- it only takes 5 minutes -- it makes the task feel a lot more manageable.

Maybe a better analogy is: put just 1 or 2 cups away from the dishwasher, and leave the rest, and don't beat yourself up about it. You know you'll return to put the rest away later.

Welcome to product management! :)