| Hi! First of all, I'm new here :) My name is Juan Carlos, but everybody knows me as Derrick Roccka. I'm 25. I've visited hacker news a lot of times, but I never signed up. So, let's get down to business. I'm a person who has an anxiety disorder. One of my biggest "problems" is that I'm always trying to create. I force myself to come up with new ideas that make me feel motivated. Unafortunately, this has a really bad side. Though I can imagine really interesting things, when I can't acomplish the "eternal to-do lists" that I have in my head, I feel extremely frustrated. I've tried a lot of things to avoid this kind of feeling, but with no success. I'm grateful to you because your article gave me a few clues about one part of my problems. Obviously, I have a lot of technical limitations, like everyone, and this world spins so fast. Anyway, being alone didn't help me in the past and I'm pretty sure that won't do it in the future. It seems an easy thing to detect, but you really made me think about it. About motivation... what can I say that you didn't hear before... You're completely right. I'm like a kid (and I'm sure you guys feel the same): when I'm bored, I quit. That's probably wrong, but I really suffer when I have to do something that completely blocks me. And this is a "double-pain" because there's a new thing in my to-do list that I'm not going to complete, once again. I hope that your article and your project is helping a lot of people like me. Thanks for all and sorry for my bad english! See you later! |
> when I can't acomplish the "eternal to-do lists" that I have in my head, I feel extremely frustrated.
You are not alone in this. There are several things you can do - in my experience - to manage this.
First: scope. Drastically limit every idea to its absolute core, implement that, and then if you're still motivated (it's OK to not be) built outward from that. What really helped me personally is Ludum Dare, it's a game-making jam, and it lasts only 48 hours. If you can't get it done in that time, lay it to rest. This is immensely liberating.
Second: expectation. I already ranted about that in this thread, no need to repeat it here.
> Obviously, I have a lot of technical limitations, like everyone, and this world spins so fast.
It may seem that way if, say, you're trying to keep up with every single new JavaScript framework that comes out. But it's not the right way to look at it. We live in a world that's keeping legacy software alive indefinitely. When something new comes out, eye it critically, and acknowledge that the menu you can choose from has expanded. There is no need to consume the entire menu or even a large part of it. If you choose to perceive it as a rich, ever-expanding world that gives you more possibilities from day to day, you stop seeing it as a pressure-cooker you have to keep up with in order to stay relevant.
To keep with the game-programming examples, one of the most successful game development stories in recent history was built in Java, as a software renderer if I recall (Minecraft).