
Idea Debt - cdvonstinkpot
http://jessicaabel.com/2016/01/27/idea-debt/
======
xhrpost
This, this is probably the biggest and yet least recognized obstruction for
wannapreneurs. I know because I've been there myself for years and have only
recently realized what I was doing. I would get really excited about an idea,
start working on it, only work on the interesting parts (not on what actually
had to come next) and then let it fizzle away as the next wave of emotion came
with another idea. I would justify this cycle with the emotion dip itself, if
the next step in the process was not interesting or uncomfortable, that I was
my reason to leave it. Surely the next idea won't have any of those areas.

The author mentions piles of lore and doing research. For me, research was
basically entrepreneurial porn. My mind thought I was getting something that
it really wasn't. I thought I was making progress by researching everything
but in reality, I was just building piles of lore. A company I'm currently
working on, with all this in mind, I've decided to do no extra research beyond
what is needed in the moment. Forcing myself to steer clear of the research
trap and instead only work on what is going to get me to the next point.

I could go on and on about this topic, it's not talked about nearly enough. It
seems like everyone has an idea for a company, app, startup, etc. Us
developers sometimes roll our eyes. We think it's their idea that is bad, or
that they're just following the startup hype. In reality though, none of that
is true, the reason there idea isn't coming to life is because they're simply
not doing it.

~~~
junto
I don't know if this is just me, but I used to be full of ideas, half finished
projects and several projects that I talked myself out of.

Since having children, I no longer have ideas, and rarely work on anything
than paid contract work.

Has anyone else experienced this? I feel void of ideas.

~~~
chipsy
A lot of the excitement in a project comes from learning: "can I do it," "what
will happen," etc.

After a certain point in your life, you grow convinced that you've seen it all
before, and that has a way of draining you of excitement. Children are a
common tipping point because they also make you _less selfish_. Nobody is
asking you to make those projects, so it has to come from within, and if you
act only for others, you never get around to it, because there's always
another household crisis looming in the distance.

The only way to pull through is to turn it into a habit, instead of relying on
your whims alone.

~~~
junto
That's an interesting take on it. I'd never perceived that, but you're right
(in my case anyway). I have two children under 6 so there is very little
'pause time' until they are in bed asleep, and by that point I'm shattered.

------
vog
This is why I moved a huge portion of my TODO list into an IDEAS list. This is
an outliner document (Org-mode) that contains notes on lots of different
ideas.

So why didn't I just delete those items? Because writing down that stuff helps
me not to think about it the whole day if I don't want to.

The IDEAS list grows and grows, but that's okay. I don't feel obliged to
implement any of these ideas. Whenever I recall an idea, I go to that
document, add some notes, and that's it. No deep research, no domain buying,
no name searching. Just writing or extending on what comes to my mind, and
roughly structuring it.

From time to time it happens that I do want to implement one of these ideas.
And in that case I have some nice, simple spec to start from.

As a side note, I started to do that after I read "Writing, Briefly" from Paul
Graham
([http://paulgraham.com/writing44.html](http://paulgraham.com/writing44.html)),
which contains the following great advice:

    
    
        ...
        when you finish, leave yourself something easy to start with;
        accumulate notes for topics you plan to cover at the bottom of the file;
        don't feel obliged to cover any of them;
        ...
    

These points are applicable far outside the scope of writing. In that sense,
my IDEAS list is the clearly separated "bottom" of my TODO list that contains
the "accumulated notes".

As a final note, this concept seems to be somehow related to the Not-To-Do
list that some people advocate.

~~~
boothead
This seems similar to the idea of a spark file?

[http://lifehacker.com/5941997/defrag-your-brain-with-a-
spark...](http://lifehacker.com/5941997/defrag-your-brain-with-a-spark-file)

 _edit_ Also do you have anything written down about using org-mode for todos
and ideas?

~~~
vog
_> This seems similar to the idea of a spark file?_

Indeed! The concept of a "spark file" describes exactly what I'm doing.

 _> Also do you have anything written down about using org-mode for todos and
ideas?_

This is pretty basic Org-mode usage. My To-Do list is just nested headings,
each with a TODO or DONE marker (Shift+Left, Shift+Right). My IDEAS list
doesn't even have those markers, it is just nested headings and nested lists.
The only "advanced thing" that I do is moving items via Mod+Up and Mod+Down.
This is very handy, as that moves the whole subtree up and down. And I'm using
the "Tab" key for folding and unfolding subtrees.

Org-mode offers much more than what I'm using here. I'm not yet a power-user
of Org-mode. For example, the "agenda view" might simplify a lot of what I'm
doing (not for IDEAS, but for TODO, meetings, etc). But I didn't find the time
to dig deeper into Org-mode yet.

~~~
rgoddard
I would highly recommend learning some of agenda mode. I originally started
with only using the tree editing features. But one of the coolest features is
the agenda mode and the fact that you can create custom views which pull in
all the details you want. Here is the view I use all the time:

    
    
      (setq org-agenda-custom-commands
          '(("w" "Agenda and Next todos"
             ((agenda "" ((org-agenda-ndays 1))) ;show anything scheduled for today including habits
              (todo "NEXT|IN PROGRESS"
                    ((org-agenda-overriding-header "Working On"))) ;things that I am currently working on
              (todo "TODO"
                    ((org-agenda-overriding-header "Check Todo's"))) ;Todo items to check on periodically
              (todo "WAITING"
                    ((org-agenda-overriding-header "Waiting On"))))))) ;things I am blocking on

------
caseysoftware
This is one of the reasons we put together "Finish Up Weekend" \-
[http://fuweekend.com/](http://fuweekend.com/)

It's a hackathon weekend when you're not allowed to start anything new. You
are only allowed to bring things to finish. It's not strictly coding, we've
had lawyers, screenwriters, artists, authors, and sewing projects completed.
The positive peer pressure is great.

When you finish something, you get to ring a bell so we can celebrate
briefly.. and then get back to work.

And there are no prizes, just the satisfaction of getting things done.

~~~
bpchaps
Love the idea! Don't see any upcoming dates, though :(.

Do you guys do anything in Chicago?

~~~
caseysoftware
Not yet but we're looking to spread the model.

Drop me an email and I'm happy to chat details. :)

~~~
graeme
Montreal plans? I'd love to help set it up here.

~~~
caseysoftware
Email me. :)

I'll be in Montreal in a few weeks for Confoo and would love to chat over a
beer or coffee.

------
nsb1
Thinking of this as 'debt' doesn't seem quite right to me. It's not like
someone's going to come and break your kneecaps some day if you don't act on
these ideas. You don't owe these ideas to anyone, and you don't have to 'pay
them back'. Calling this debt is like calling the hours while we sleep and are
not being paid 'income debt', or calling our front lawn 'food debt' because we
haven't planted a garden there. How dare we!

I'm as guilty as anyone of amassing ideas and half-baked projects in various
files and/or boxes of junk around the house, but I don't think of them as
debt. They're all opportunities. Some are good, some are bad, and some have
been missed, but they're not debt. I happen to think that some of them have
the potential to make me a lot of money should I choose to implement them, but
there are no guarantees. There is nobody out there saying, "Here's a check for
$20M if you implement that idea right there, and you get to keep half."

'Follow your dreams'...'Do what you love and the money will follow'...'Nothing
ventured, nothing gained' these are phrases that all sound great from the
other side of success, but when you have a normal life with a family and a
mortgage, the decision to pursue your opportunities is not as cut and dried.
Having to weigh the consequences of not earning a paycheck to pursue one of
these opportunities against food on the table or missing a mortgage payment,
or even just not spending those evening free-time hours with your kids changes
the equation substantially.

~~~
jerf
I think the idea is that some people experience them as debt they owe
themselves. If you've never felt that way, I can see why this would not make
sense to you. (No sarcasm or harshness intended; I mean that straight.) Some
of us had to come to this conclusion by a harder route. For myself, I still
learned it fairly early, but I do remember _learning_ it. My natural
inclination was to finish everything.

As I type that, it occurs to me for the first time that I grew up in an
environment where that was explicitly said to me sometimes. Even to this day,
my now-retired father can be heard angsting about the projects he has not
finished, and he tried his well-meaning best to pass that on to me. Perhaps
this stems from the problems of leaving the physical projects he primarily
works on half-done; a half-done remodeling is an ugly thing. A half-done car
restoration takes up a lot of space and gets worse over time if you don't work
on it as it basically rots. But creative projects have different rules. I've
got at most a few hundred kilobytes of old programs lying in my sentimental
directory... who cares? Who even knows? It's so tiny I tend to even forget it
exists.

~~~
tim333
I can see that - I've got ideas I've spent money and time on and I kind of
think I owe myself a finished thing which has failed to materialize.

------
danieltillett
I love my idea debt. Not only are they a connection to my younger self, but
old ideas are a rich ore to be mined for new ideas. Some of my best current
ideas are old ideas that have been tweaked by experience or external change so
they are now relevant. Keep working on your ideas, but make sure you are
actually turning some of them into reality.

~~~
rorykoehler
I find it amazing how many of the ideas from my vault exist in some form or
other in the real world now.

~~~
augustl
I love the phrase "if you're the only one with an idea, it's probably a bad
idea" :)

~~~
danieltillett
This could be shortened to "if you have an idea then it is probably a bad
idea" since most ideas are bad.

~~~
rorykoehler
People seemed to take it as if I was bragging about how many good ideas I have
had (parent comment 2 levels up). In reality what I find amazing is that most
of my ideas were terrible, solutions looking for a problem, and I'm glad I
didn't pursue them.

------
qznc
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11374746](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11374746)

Self-regulation of goal setting: turning free fantasies about the future into
binding goals.

Oettingen G1, Pak H, Schnetter K.

Abstract: Fantasy realization theory states that when people contrast their
fantasies about a desired future with reflections on present reality, a
necessity to act is induced that leads to the activation and use of relevant
expectations. Strong goal commitment arises in light of favorable
expectations, and weak goal commitment arises in light of unfavorable
expectations. To the contrary, when people only fantasize about a desired
future or only reflect on present reality, expectancy-independent moderate
goal commitment emerges. Four experiments pertaining to various life domains
supported these hypotheses. Strength of goal commitment was assessed in
cognitive (e.g., making plans), affective (e.g., felt attachment), and
behavioral terms (e.g., effort expenditure, quality of performance).
Implications for theories on goal setting and goal striving are discussed.

too academic, didnt read: To act, also think about _now_ instead of only
dreaming what _could_ be.

~~~
seivan
I read somewhere that fantasizing about new features, off spins,
optimizations, marketing tactics and etc would release enough dopamine that
you'd eventually lose interest as the real deal wouldn't do better. I'll see
if I can find it.

But what you posted is interesting and seems to be a perfect fit here and my
project app/game graveyard. Someone actually said that I'm not building, im
playing with borrowed Lego, pretty much sums it up. I think it boils down to
analysis paralysis, that's the root cause. Any anxiety, any doubt, lack of
focus, and procrastination stems from that. At least arrived at after really
digging.

------
cableshaft
While a lot of people have tons of ideas that they can only execute on a few
of them, there's quite a few people have the talent to make things that don't
have the deluge of ideas invading their mind every day.

I think the idea people should be a little less protective of their ideas,
especially the ones they know will never get made, and flesh them out just
enough so others can run with it, and then put it out there somewhere.

I know there's a couple sites based on this concept, but maybe it could be
something where ideas could get upvoted and the more visible ones might get
people on board.

I don't know, sometimes I think that's what people are trying to do when they
make a project open-source sometimes.

But yeah, there's a bunch of junk I come up with that aren't bad ideas, but
I'll never realistically invest the time to get them done, especially
considering all my other projects.

~~~
bitJericho
It's called crowdsourcing and I haven't seen it really work because ideas are
a dime a dozen. Create. Don't think about it.

~~~
ktRolster
As a programmer, I have skills to build basically anything, but I don't have
any ideas for what to build. If someone gave me an idea that would really
capture my imagination, I would really appreciate it.

("Yet Another Ad Network" doesn't capture my imagination)

~~~
intellegacy
Why would someone give you their good ideas for free? This is what happens
when engineers repeat the falsehood that "ideas are worthless". Well,
engineering without an idea is also worthless.

~~~
ktRolster
> Why would someone give you their good ideas for free? That is exactly what a
> comment above suggested

------
hellofunk
Steven King has said something that I've come to support, that note/list-
keeping is a great way to let bad ideas survive. He claims that a really good
idea will survive in your head on its own, and a bad idea will die. And that
by writing down every idea, you are polluting your landscape of possibilities
by immortalizing ideas that are better left forgotten.

~~~
geezer
I would disagree with Steven King here. Once you write down ideas, it allows
you to reconsider them later in a different light, a difference context. I
believe that is extremely valuable because it is crucial to analyze an idea
from various perspectives before embarking on implementing it. Embarking on an
idea not well thought out can be extremely expensive.

~~~
chiaro
Yep, definitely. The process of writing anything out (ideas, emotions, plans)
lets you separate out the roles of describing the idea vs criticising it.
Trying to evaluate them in your head requires you to do both simultaneously.

------
xiaoma
This is pretty stark contrast to James Altucher's "idea machine" concept.
That's where you push yourself to come up with 10 ideas daily in order to
build your "idea muscle" concept. Some days he'd come up with 10 ideas for one
specific person or business.

It seems a bit odd, but the guy did make millions repeatedly (after
squandering 100% of his wealth, repeatedly).

~~~
kazagistar
I think they can be reconciled.

Idea debt is over-valuing existing ideas. You just have a few dozen plans that
you keep going over and not acting on.

Coming up with a bunch of ideas would make that harder. You would have
thousands and thousands if you kept them, so you just discard them while still
improving the skill of having good ideas for when it counts.

~~~
xiaoma
I like this line of thought. If you are an _idea machine_ , you're actually a
lot less likely to be tied to any one idea and ride it down to the bitter end.
Instead, you'd realize that most ideas aren't that great and it would take a
higher and higher bar to impress yourself.

Maybe the dangerous thing is when ideas are in a state where maybe they're
_plans_ but you're uncertain and instead of executing on them or deciding not
to you just let them accumulate and sap your attention.

------
ajuc
IMHO the problem is talking. When you talk about your idea you receive big
part of gratification for almost no effort.

~~~
joslin01
I fully agree. I've seen this happen with my younger self countless times. I
would get excited about an idea, tell someone all about it, and then suddenly
feel less motivated to work on it. Anything I'm serious about, I try not to
talk about anymore as a result.

------
benjaminjosephw
> "If… you have 'binders of lore' and no book... you’re living with serious
> Idea Debt."

Moving from a daydream to some actual artefacts the first step _away_ from
Idea Debt, not further into it. In technical terms, this could be writing a
script instead of building an application or creating a spec and some
documentation before writing some code. I'd argue that this is where you start
to flesh-out and make real your idea.

Binders of "lore" would be an amazing resource to have at hand when you
actually do come to writing your book. Surely this isn't a waste of time but
it's where the idea ruminates, develops and matures. If anything, it improves
the quality of an idea and can help make that idea a reality.

~~~
jib
Inventory is waste. It is one of the most insidious kinds of waste since it
feels productive generating it. In reality it is waste.

It being waste doesn't mean you dont need it - that's how waste builds up: you
create stuff in case, or you save things in case, or you build an extra large
buffer just in case. It's all done with good intentions. If one of your goals
in life is to be effective you need to work to eliminate as much inventory as
possible, same as the other types of waste.

Overproduction, Inventory and Overprocessing are the three most insidious
types of waste - they seem like good things.

Why not gold plate the thing? Just add these few features in case you need
them. Why not make a few extra just in case, why not save that thing that you
may need later or maybe you will finish at some point.

The other types of waste are more clearly negative.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Creative people over-produce ideas _because that 's what being creative
means._

The problem isn't having too many ideas - it's not finishing any of them,
ever. At some point you have to spend enough time on at least one project to
get it out into the world.

That always means work that can be boring and feel like a chore, even if the
project is the most exciting thing to happen since the invention of fire.

The difference between professionals and amateurs is that professionals have a
balanced tolerance for that part of the process, and understand that you have
to do at least some of the boring stuff to finish.

Amateur dabblers have none at all. When they get bored they move on, so they
never finish _anything._ (In extreme cases they never truly start.)

------
flashman
509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded, here's a mirror:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20160204103028/http://jessicaabel...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160204103028/http://jessicaabel.com/2016/01/27/idea-
debt/)

------
Bjartr
One of the most damaging pieces of information I ever applied to my life was
the idea that not finishing thigh things was bad or undesirable. You know why?
Because the result of internalising that wasn't that I finished more things,
but rather that I started fewer. I no longer got even the learning I
previously did from the start of a project and the research involved etc.

To this day I am still struggling to return to where I constantly started
projects all over the place only to leave them unfinished. It was so, so much
better that way.

------
the-dude
aka Brain Crack :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHCQWjTrJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHCQWjTrJ8)

------
z3t4
I consider myself a very productive person ... But I just removed about 30
years of work from my todo-list, after reading this article.

------
vdnkh
I'm guilty of this, but I can't stop. What I do now is focus more more on
"micro-ideas" which I can finish start to end in a day/weekend/week.
Consequentially, these ideas are much harder to come by

------
crimsonalucard

          ....................................................
          ||                                                 |
          ||                                                 |
          ||                                                 |
     Idea | |                                                |
     Debt | \                                                |
          |  \                                               |
          |   \                                              |
          |    \                                             |
          |     `.                                           |
          |      `b                                          |
          |        \                                         |
          |         `.                                       |
          |           ' _                                    |
          |              "o                                  |
          |                `..                               |
          |                   `-.                            |
          |                      `-.._                       |
          |                           `--..                  |
          |                                `'"---............|
          |                                                  |
          '`''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
                         Technical Debt
    
    

The less you plan and think about an idea, the more technical debt you will
accumulate.

------
_pius
Related: "Brain Crack" by Ze Frank

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHCQWjTrJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHCQWjTrJ8)

------
stared
I used to have ideas on a to-do list, but it was torturing me (especially as
it takes a few orders of magnitude to come up with an idea, however elaborate,
than to do it; and doing it is also a reality check - some things seam clever
until you start doing it and meeting contradictions).

Now it is a separate list, entitled "n-th-priority-tasks-tml.md". And I try to
keep no regret for not doing things.

For doing, as cheap as it may sound "just do it". As I heard from one writer
"Imperfect books have one advantage: they exist". (At least for me
perfectionism is the prime reason for delaying such projects.)

And one advice from a friend of mine, when I was delaying (for 2 years)
writing a quantum game ([http://quantumgame.io](http://quantumgame.io), coming
this March!): "the only thing you lack is sitting on your ass and writing
code". She was right.

Also, one of my write ups:

"If you have a great project, do moonlight. Don’t wait for better times,
because they won’t come. Maybe you overstate the need of money, institutional
support or social confirmation?" from [http://crastina.se/theres-no-projects-
like-side-projects](http://crastina.se/theres-no-projects-like-side-projects)

~~~
vog
_> Now it is a separate list, entitled "n-th-priority-tasks-tml.md". And I try
to keep no regret for not doing things._

It's interesting to read that I'm not the only one doing this. See also my
comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11032799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11032799)

I chose the name "ideas" instead of "n-th-priority-tasks" to clearly
distinguish this list from actual tasks. Because they aren't. None of those
entries deserves to be named "task", until one starts to get serious about
them and creates a prototype. And this will happen only to a tiny fraction of
those entries.

~~~
stared
The title may be misleading (actually, I remember it is "n-th-priority-
things.md"). I've just checked its heading (I keep this file always open) and
it's "n-th prority ideas".

I read your comment before posting my own. :)

When it comes to their length and (what is more important) being specified, it
varies a lot. From a blog post I have in mind and can write in a few hours, to
things that make take months or years.

I was thinking about making it public, but:

\- most of them are idiosyncratic and a few words stands for a long idea,

\- I am afraid of self-censorship (is it good enough for the public? doesn't
it sound offensive?).

When it comes to tasks-ideas separation, it reminds me of
[http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd073010s.gif](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd073010s.gif)
(I used to have to do bullets which were there for years - and they were
causing so much pain).

------
pjmorris
I've got a 'Current Task' text file, in which I write down everything I need
or want to do that I'd expect I'd forget otherwise, prioritized by how soon
and/or how urgently the thing needs to be done (Thank you, David Allen [0]).
For example, the top of the file right now is my agenda for a meeting that's
about to happen. Once the meeting's done, the agenda will go in a logbook
file, and any action items will take the agenda's place.

I have colossal idea debt, as measured by the size of the CurrentTask file.
Scrolling past the most urgent items, I've got everything in there from ~
'change that code' to 'Read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'' to a list of writing
prompts that have moldered there for years.

The nice thing, though, is that the file forms an external inventory of my
plans, intents, and ideas. Putting them in there lets me focus on what needs
to be done now, while removing the fear of forgetting later. I'll periodically
purge, moving the things that no longer matter into the logbook.

[0]'Getting Things Done', David Allen

~~~
kbutler
Reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is totally worth it. And doesn't take very
long...

------
abrie
The majority of this thread's comments relate personal experiences, so I might
as well contribute mine as well. Nearly a decade ago I started work on a
project. For eight years progress consisted of taking notes and daydreaming. I
was going to write a book that would make me famous. Over the years the dream-
ideas progressed from a paper book, to an iPod book, to a HTML5 book. The
daydreams always kept up with the available technology. Finally, two years
ago, I suddenly started working on the thing. It is a travelogue, written for
Android. The difficulties of implementation were unexpected and surprising.
And now that it's approaching completeness a new set of unexpected problems
arise. I'd assumed that simply writing a book would be enough to sell it; but
apparently a lot of marketing is required. Daydreaming has benefits, but it
costs time.

Edit: Having mentioned marketing; here is video screen cap of the book:
[https://youtu.be/yX4JTS-eIqQ](https://youtu.be/yX4JTS-eIqQ)

------
CM30
I know this feeling, and it's what's held up most of my own projects. Heck,
most of my one off articles too, I must have hundreds or thousands of drafts
on my WordPress blog, most of which never end up going anywhere.

So why is this the case? Well, a few reasons really. One is because I have an
awkward tendency to never, ever be happy with something simple. Ever. So the
idea ends up getting more and more complicated, and I end up giving up after
realising that even a team of about 200 people with a multi billion dollar
budget couldn't successfully pull it off in a reasonable timeframe. Add a
touch of perfectionism, and well, you can probably guess how many of my actual
projects have even been started.

Most of the rest usually end halfway through after the fun part is over.

But maybe I'll finally try and get some stuff done this year. Like, not
starting anything new until the things I was planning to work on/have already
been working on are completion.

------
cdnsteve
The post was a very nice read and hit a personal chord for me. I'm that guy
that hoards domain names for all these amazing project idea's. I've started to
organize projects into Trello boards, most important ones get their own
project board and details start to get hashed out.

The funny thing is that I've flat out closed many boards, because I've lost
interest or the idea doesn't seem to solve the problem any longer. That's OK.
I think it lets me distill down the best ones for true idea investments. As
long as it's full-filling and you learn something along the way, then why not?

------
runewell
Sadly, I have been a vicitm of idea debt. As a young developer I had a grande
vision of starting an online network of websites. I spent a solid month
planning them all out, designing the logos and everything. Needless to say,
when I showed the work to my boss he was less than impressed that I put off
client work to plan our company's world domination.

I still have all the logos :) [https://www.dropbox.com/s/7uxj41grx7s79mg/all-
logos.jpg?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/7uxj41grx7s79mg/all-logos.jpg?dl=0)

------
miguelrochefort
I've had this vision for a revolutionary system when I was 12. I think about
it every single day. Yet, my only accomplishment is thousands of pages of
notes and ideas about possible use cases for this system. I haven't wrote a
single line of code. I tried blogging about it, but I can't decide where to
start. You can find glimpse of the idea in some of my HN/Reddit
posts/comments, but that's about it.

This have never felt satisfied or truly happy since. I don't know what to do
next.

~~~
nairboon
I glanced briefly over your posts and it seems that you're dealing with a
_complex system_. The trouble with those is that you can't just break it down
to a simple prototype, because by simplifying it you lose exactly the
properties you're interested in.

Actually building it, requires a solution to a couple of hard problems, which
themselve pull in even more. So the longer you work on it, the slower you make
any progress and the easier it is to get lost just by the sheer range of ways
to tackle it.

However, somehow those complex ones are just way more interesting for myself,
I pick them every time over "the simple things", but the result is, that I too
can't show any visible progress, because it's not done yet and no simple
prototype can show/imitate the _system_ as a whole. If you ever discover a
sound methodology for these kinds of problem, please tell me about it.

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elcapitan
The concept is probably related to something you could call 'recursive idea
debt' or 'recursive learning debt' in tech - when you come up with an exciting
idea, and because you have no constraints you start thinking about this great
new technology you would learn for that project and use. And then you would
find 3 other interesting technologies or concepts related to that which you
would want to learn more about. And so on.

~~~
shostack
Definitely been hit with this. On the flip side, I usually learn something new
and useful out of it.

I'm an "early" programmer, so there's a ton I don't know. When I start
breaking an idea I get to things like "oh, how do I have this running in the
background while the user is still doing something?" That got me into Rails
background workers, the Sidekiq and Foreman gems, etc. All were super useful
for me to know about, and concepts that I knew existed in a vague sense, but
hadn't actually gotten to yet.

That said, these totally take me down a rabbit hole, and are ultimately
counterproductive towards the core idea if they are distracting enough.

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ontouchstart
You might want to learn something from J. C. R. Licklider:

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SN--t9jXQc0](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SN--
t9jXQc0)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ncCPTgWX6a8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ncCPTgWX6a8)

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amelius
I wonder how this works for somebody like Elon Musk. Does he have idea debt?

~~~
rorykoehler
Probably has tons of idea debt but he is also very single minded in what he
wants to achieve so it's probably easier for him to discard ideas and only do
the ones no-one else can do that will go some way towards saving humanity.

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dandrick
I don't see the difference between this and procrastination - there doesn't
seem to be a great deal of new insight here.

~~~
jjaredsimpson
procrastination is delay in doing things you don't particularly want to do but
still understand are obligations. Delaying doing homework/office work/yard
work.

idea debt is: the struggle with creative sunk costs. Thinking in circles about
something you are interested in while accomplishing no really progress in
making your idea a tangible thing.

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nazarewk
Damn, those Forest Lords sound suspiciously like Malazan Book of the Fallen ;D

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make3
site is down

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bobby_9x
This has happened to many so many times. The other situation I've had is that
even when I start working on my next idea, I start getting distracted by a ton
of new ones.

~~~
seivan
Yup same here. It's hard to make decision on what to stick with and finish.

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such_a_casual
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHCQWjTrJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHCQWjTrJ8)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tatami_Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tatami_Galaxy)

[http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm](http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm)

For those of you who suffer from this, don't worry! It works out in the end,
and it's just part of growing up. Reading random blog posts isn't going to
solve your problem with motivation. Smoke a joint and cut yourself some slack.

------
draw_down
It's much easier to think about things than to make them, so this is really
the normal state of affairs. Not sure you can avoid it completely

