
A response to “How to never complete anything” - fvargas
https://neilonsoftware.com/2017/03/10/my-response-to-how-to-never-complete-anything/
======
mikekchar
Basically I agree, but I think you can put it more simply: this is how we
learn. 5 years into your career is a _really_ short time. I know that people
feel like they should be (or are) at the peak of their powers 5 years in, but
that's kind of delusional.

Running a big successful project should not be your goal (IMHO) that early on.
I've got a couple of very long projects under my belt (none really
successful), but I've learned dramatically more from my hundreds (or
thousands) of aborted projects than I have from those ones that I stuck with
for 5-7 years.

Give yourself permission to play. It's important. If you have a long term,
successful project, you will not have much time for play any more.

------
klum
Regarding the points in the beginning of the article: So in this case, as in
every other one, the answer seems to be "balance" :).

People tend to go for extremes as solutions to their problems... I'm guessing
because extremes make for easy, clear answers. The thing is, the answer
depends on where you are. For some people, adding discipline to their day is a
good thing, for others, cutting themselves some slack is what's necessary. For
some projects, adding some structure to the process would be a benefit, other
projects may need to be more agile. And I'm not talking about different types
of people and projects, just that depending on where you are, the correct
advice is different, and not applicable to a person or project currently on
the other end of the scale.

This happens in every field: "train harder", "train less hard", "eat more
carbs", "eat less carbs"... The tricky thing is that the optimal route is
generally not at either extreme, but somewhere in the middle. I guess you
learn to recognise the correct balance with experience (or guidance).

~~~
nogenerix
I definitely fall prey to this extreme type of thinking. I consider it a form
of naive idealism – believing there is always one maximally correct solution.
This is why solutions such as Soylent are so appealing to me. Perhaps the
cause is simply a lack of in-depth knowledge and experience in the areas for
which I'm seeking a perfect solution, or maybe it's related to being on the
spectrum.

~~~
agentgt
IMO has hackneyed as it is: It is experiences and maturity. I was of the same
mind set for most of my 20s.

As you get older (and hopefully I'm not false in assuming you are younger)
family and bigger picture things come into play.

------
vinceguidry
Very, very good reply, I'm glad I skipped past the unnecessary point-by-point
at the beginning to get to the real meat of the reply.

There are a few weird and irrational biases I see going on amongst techies who
frequent HN. I'll just talk about one of them because bias is a tough topic to
talk rationally about.

The one I want to discuss that I see a lot of hackers doing is creating a
_need_ to do everything themselves. This leads directly to the delusion that
side projects are things to take Really Seriously.

Sure, if I wanted to, I could chunk out all the work it takes to build a
product, take it to the market, refine it, then finally build a company around
it to take the load off.

But unless you're a real honest-to-god genius, then you're going to make
mistakes, and those mistakes can add months, or even years to the time when
you can Call It Done and go back to spending the time with your wife and kids.

If you're not absolutely strict about not letting it override your personal
life, you _will_ end up sacrificing your life to the jealous God of the
Market.

You might try to respond by moving the goalposts, saying that the real goal
here is learning, not achieving some kind of outcome. But do I really need to
ship a product to learn?

There is a class of activity that is actively distrustful of the market, which
insists that all learning comes from the creator's own mind. It's called art.
If Picasso thought that the market was worth listening to, then we wouldn't
know his name today. Artists by their nature listen to other artists, and not
you. That's what makes it art.

Side projects should be considered to be more art than business. Art doesn't
fuck with your personal life. Art _informs_ your personal life. Whether you're
creating it or enjoying it. If I'm sitting there hacking out a weird new
concept for accessing databases and my wife comes into the room and wants to
talk about our son's baseball game, I _put down the text editor and listen to
my wife_. I do not tell her that I'm currently in flow right now and jeez
could you really just come back later after I'm taking care of this Really
Important Thing.

If you're bleeding your professional life so far into your personal life that
you are even for a moment taking it more seriously than your wife and kids,
you have fucked up your priorities. I would never ever ever even dream of
doing this. Everything else is noise compared to my personal life.

~~~
hutzlibu
"my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game,
I put down the text editor and listen to my wife. I do not tell her that I'm
currently in flow right now"

But can you listen patiently, if you have been in a flow before?

I can't, even though I too often try to, to be polite, but I think I prefer
being honest and stay in the flow, if I want to.

And when I am done, I am free for other persons.

But it takes good balance, true.

~~~
keithwhor
I can't. I've tried. I don't think it's necessarily messed up priorities. I
think it's that some of us have obsessive compulsions to follow through on an
idea or train of thought. I like to think I'm generally personable and
hospitable, but I am a completely different person in the midst of a flow. I
am abrupt and dismissive - not because I don't care, but because of an
irrational urgency to put ink to paper. I often turn around, minutes (to even
an hour) later, and dequeue every question or thing that was asked of me, one-
by-one.

I feel like it's physically painful for me to not work in this way. I can not
give undivided attention when there's something that needs to get out, and am
certainly jealous of people who can context switch out of a flow like it's
nothing.

~~~
noir_lord
> dequeue every question or thing that was asked of me, one-by-one.

My ex used to hate that, she'd say "your not listening?" and I'd repeat
verbatim everything she said and then she'd get annoyed because listening and
_listening_ are different things.

Current GF gets into a flow state herself so she is _way_ more understanding
:).

~~~
leesalminen
> she'd say "your not listening?" and I'd repeat verbatim everything she said
> and then she'd get annoyed because listening and listening are different
> things.

Happens to me all the time :)

------
martincmartin
The author of "How to never complete anything" seems like he was
procrastinating. Procrastination is a kind of mental habit that can be hard to
counter by just telling yourself to not get distracted. Yelling at yourself
"JUST. GET. SHIT. DONE." is not making a dispassionate decision "you know, I'd
be happier if I got to the end on my next project, I think next time I'll bang
it out quickly then assess what I've got."

There are a lot of good books on procrastination. Meditation / introspection
can help too. There are much more effective methods than just trying to "force
yourself" to not get distracted / procrastinate.

~~~
noir_lord
In the middle of my desktop wallpaper I have the words "motivation is
bullshit\nget it done".

It's actually worked, every time I see it it reminds me of a video I watched
that discussed motivation, it was a bit hoorah but the core message struck a
note.

------
combatentropy
I wonder if the writer of the original article misunderstood the reason he
started a side project. To me it sounded like he started it to have fun, to
play with things, and to learn. Later he tacked on the goal of to make
something for the world.

Who feels guilty that their crossword puzzle or frisbee football or model
airplane hobby has yet to yield a practical product, to sell to the rest of
the world? Maybe we confuse our goals while software dabbling because software
has the potential to be a product, while it's much harder to be tricked into
thinking that our finished sudoku puzzle might somehow help mankind.

I think it's helpful to first correctly identify your reasons for doing
something, before you try to judge whether you are doing it well or should
keep on doing it. For example, it helped me to identify that the real reason I
check my email too often at work is because I was lonely, not just because I
wanted to gain information or to give information to others. I think this is
making it easier for me to stop checking email so often and to find other ways
to fulfill my needs.

As the writer of this response article indicates, writing software to learn or
to play is a good enough reason in itself, and we need study and play for the
same reason children do: to stretch ourselves. Or, more practically, it is a
shortcut to pleasure. The commonly acknowledged pathway to pleasure is (1)
work, (2) get paid, (3) buy something that makes you happy. But with play, the
work itself makes you happy. No intermediate activity is required.

------
andy_ppp
I actually realised after watching the Drew Houston (Dropbox founder)
interview [1] that the most important thing is working full time on your
startup. There's too much for one person to do even if you are full time let
alone working 7pm-3am every day.

[1] [https://blog.ycombinator.com/drew-houston-on-how-to-build-
th...](https://blog.ycombinator.com/drew-houston-on-how-to-build-the-future/)

------
watwut
I wonder whether current wave of must have side project is not result of
people having non satisfying/challenging work.

------
metaphorm
This was a really wonderful thing to read. I think it's extremely important
for people to get this perspective, with its experience grounded in the
realities of the work and the complexities of just being a human person.

------
jacmoe
Good advice, but loaded with assumptions that may or may not be true.

The original article, and the response, are two views of the "problem" at
opposite ends of the spectrum (so to speak).

Depending on the context, both are right. And also wrong. ;_)

------
hyperpallium
> _“But done”_ – What is “done” in software?

Yes, it's never really done, but there are levels or milestones of "doneness",
where you get to feel the satisfaction of _something_ done.

Two ways of looking at "doneness": an end in itself, or as a means to an end.
Professionals/craftmen/artisans prefer the former (and are prone to
perfectionism - never reaching any level of perfect doneness); whereas
business people are prone to cutting corners - cutting anything non-essential
- in order to reach the end (and are prone to cutting the essential).
Sidenote: it's _great_ for a business for perfection to be hard to reach (and
customers still wanting it), because it means you can release another version
- when perfection is reached (or customers don't want any more), the business
dies.

Microsoft "wizards" were a good example of the a means to an end (don't know
if they still are): they got the job done, if you wanted a common combination
of selections. But was buggy for other combinations that should work. It
looked like they only fixed the bugs that they had to. So... this is
outrageous to a perfectionistic - of course all the combinations should work!
My point is that this achieved the end, for most people.

Each single combination of features or path that works is an element of
"doneness", that _actually helps someone_.

Richard Dawkins talks about the evolution of the human eye - how could such a
complex interdependent thing come into existence spontaneously? He says it
came bit by bit, from a patch of photosensitive cells, to a hollow of them, to
a simple lens, gradually refining its focal qualities. A similar story for
orchid mimickry of insects. (Chapter was called "Do Good by Stealth").

The point is that each advance had a level of "doneness", in that it was
_better than not having it_ (thus conferring survival advantage). And who's to
say the advancement has ceased?

One also have a level of doneness for the intrinsic beauty of the work
itself... it's just that _you_ are going to have to define what "doneness"
will mean for you... and you'd better make each level very small in scope,
because it takes a _long_ time to make even a small thing beautiful or
perfect. For example, just making a framework is a worthy and ambitious goal.

Though I still think, even for "ends in themselves" it's useful to distinguish
between what business people call "differentiating" factors and "hygiene"
factors. You must have hygiene, but it doesn't have to be world-beating - just
good enough to do the job. But for differentiating factors, you have to do
something unusual or special (though again, only really good enough to
differentiate).

It's up to you to work out what "good enough" really means. I think comparing
it with not having it at all is a good way to evaluate its worth without
getting caught in an endless perfectionism trap...

------
noir_lord
You write beautifully.

~~~
nogenerix
Agreed. Well crafted prose.

------
unlmtd
> I think it’s time for you to have a vacation – a real vacation.

Iv tried it all; sail without an engine, tan on beaches 5k miles away, buy all
the sex workers (my) money could buy. None if it worked. The only true
vacation for me is lysergic acid diethylamide, 250 to 500 micro grams.

~~~
M_Grey
That strikes me as a cry for help, if the only time you ever feel like you can
be "on vacation" is when you're divorced from reality. Take acid all you like,
but if you _need_ it to feel relaxed... you're already in some very deep
trouble and should seek help.

~~~
unlmtd
I do seek help, and LSD gives it to me. 'Reality' .. Ahahah!

 _Quid est veritas?_

