
Ask HN: How do you handle the fear of complexity? - zuzuleinen
I&#x27;m working as a software developer and sometimes I feel a certain anxiety when starting a new complex task.<p>I would like to get rid of this unpleasant feeling of initial frustration because I feel it&#x27;s holding me back.<p>Sometimes I see software developers working on complex tasks without being afraid to start them and they somehow ignore the frustration of working with complex tasks.<p>I was wondering if there is someone here who had same issue and how they managed to get rid of it.<p>Thanks!
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MrLeftHand
In the end, every complex task is made up by a lot of simple ones.

Always do research before starting on the actual development. It will clear up
a lot of things on the very beginning. Helps you create milestones (goals),
which can give you confidence when you reach them. The more you practice this,
the easier it will be to see the details in new projects in the future. Helps
you create an analytical mindset.

I think everyone suffers from this, from time to time. Only practice can help
you overcome this.

I had the same feeling a couple of months ago with a brand new project, with
lots of tech I haven't used before. But we (another dev and myself) sat down
and spent a month with research. We wrote numerous documents on every aspect
of the project. Spent a week in a meeting room shelling out the design and how
things will fit together. It was a priceless experience.

Highly recommend the R&D approach. We are engineers and it seems so many times
we fail to do the R(esearch) part of our work. We just jump right in and drown
in the middle of the complexity we face.

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MrLeftHand
Another example I should mention here to prove the great value of Research.

I had a project years ago, was working alone on it. Took months to complete,
but the whole application was a small disaster. Lots of small bugs and UX
issues.

Made up my mind, sat down, rewrote the whole thing in two weeks. Was 70%
better then the first version.

The lesson is that I could have spent a month or two with Research and create
a clear goal, instead of writing an application from scratch with no clear
goals, guidelines and milestones.

Could have saved a couple of months and lots of headaches. But I was fresh Dev
back then and this is not taught in schools. Or at least it wasn't when I was
there.

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TobyGiacometti
I think the first thing is to realize that this is normal. Whenever you start
something that is outside of your comfort zone, you will most likely feel
discomfort. So, trying to get rid of something that is normal won't really
work :) However, what you can do is change the way you look at this
discomfort. Ask yourself where it is coming from. Are you maybe afraid that
you will fail? Once you see what causes the anxiety, you can start seeing it
for what it is: just a feeling that comes and goes.

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andreasgonewild
I follow Polya's advice, and find a part of the problem that I know how to
solve. Divide and conquer, basically. I think the panic comes from overload,
from trying to visualize too many parameters. I've been doing this for 30
years, but I still get the same experience every time I step out of my
comfort-zone.

