
Those niggling last little bits of a project - jacquesm
http://jacquesmattheij.com/Those+niggling+last+little+bits+of+a+project
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bigiain
Ahh yes, the first 90% takes 90% of the time, then the last 10% _also_ takes
90% of the time...(welcome to my life!)

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cool-RR
You describe this as a "shortcoming" of yours. I don't think it's a
shortcoming, I think you got it exactly right. People who always have to get
everything 100% right are the ones who need to change their ways.

~~~
jonsen
Depends on how you define 100% right.

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oceanician
I always get this incling that the last bit (somewhere around the 10-20% mark)
of a project by size (i.e. tickets), takes about 50% of the time. Or the same
amount of time as a project has took so far.

Complete unscientific incling, but seems to hold out a lot of the time - if
you HAVE to finish things.

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lionhearted
> So, for the last 30 days, my mission has been to finish stuff. It's amazing
> how much change this one small item has made, every day, both 'in real life'
> as well as in all the online stuff it looks like there is a way to reach
> that 100% complete state after all.

Strange - I set a very similar goal a month ago. Actually, two goals. One is
to finish stuff.

The other is I want to become "prolific" in general - I want to do a hell of a
lot of stuff at 60% good, and make a sequel if the 60% good version is a hit.

I just saw this today:

> The main theory proposed by Simonton is that creative genius is simply a
> product of random and possibly unrelated ideas being combined in an
> interesting way through the combinatorial process. Simonton then makes a
> series of assumptions. From his theory and the assumptions, he concludes the
> existence of the equal-odds rule, which has been supported by empirical
> data. The equal-odds rule says that the average publication of any
> particular scientist does not have any statistically different chance of
> having more of an impact than any other scientist's average publication. In
> other words, those scientists who create publications with the most impact,
> also create publications with the least impact, and when great publications
> that make a huge impact are created, it is just a result of "trying" enough
> times. This is an indication that chance plays a larger role in scientific
> creativity than previously theorized.

Submitted it here but it didn't take:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1487777>

I'd like to finish more, but I'd also like to ship more stuff when it's 60%.
I'm using 60% in the sense of, "When you're 90% done, you're half finished."
I'd like to put a fast coat of paint on 90% done/half-finished stuff and get
it out the door, then be on to the next thing.

Edit: I think wanting to finish things and being comfortable calling something
finished at 60-90% done are basically two sides of the same coin, they're both
ways to eliminate this feeling:

> That way I can stop worrying about still having to do all that stuff too.

So you can either take immediate, decisive action to fix something, or you can
be comfortable ignoring it knowing that you're doing a hell of a lot of
valuable stuff good enough, and giving yourself a blessing for shipping the
good enough version _and moving on without letting it bother you_.

