

Ask HN: How do you get past the intellectual curiosity phase? - nos4A2

Usually when I am initially starting out a hobby project (an app or a tool) there is a great enthusiasm initially to learn something, but once I “figure out” the core of the problem (mental dialogue “so this piece fits here to do this, and if I extend this with some more polish it will work this way”) and can extend the idea mentally to completion, interest immediately drops leading to an unfinished project. How does one force\motivate themselves to implement the small things to finish projects?
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trapexit
Why is it a problem that the project is unfinished?

If you really needed the tool, wouldn't you still be feeling the pain, which
would presumably give you the incentive to finish it?

Maybe you just wanted the learning experience, not the finished project. I've
started (and abandoned) scores of projects over the years. Some of them went
nowhere. One of them actually turned out to be useful to some people even in
its unfinished state, and became an active open source project that I have no
involvement with. I don't feel bad about any of this.

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kghose
I have this too. I think the trick is to pick a problem that you want to see
solved (rather than just find interesting in its own right).

But I would not fret too much about this: everyone's lives are filled with
unfinished projects. Just figure out which ones are important and finish them.

Alternatiely, no project is ever finished, some are less incomplete than
others.

For me, the patience and discipline to finish things is gradually growing with
the passage of time.

