
Always a starter, never a finisher. - danielmeade
https://plus.google.com/u/0/116594037963311275379/posts/5c1Y78Luymg
======
peteforde
My father is an engineer, and he always taught me that there's no such thing
as a good job half completed. The problem with his perspective is that it is
uni-dimensional, and with good reason: if you half-build a bridge, people are
going to be sad. He's an engineer and he's got to finish the bridge.

However, my father didn't decide that a bridge was required, nor did he choose
the ideal location for the bridge based on urban planning and geographic
surveys. And let's be clear — he's not going to be out in the rain, assembling
raw materials into a structure either. His job would start with the design and
continue with the project plan, and possibly end as a consultant or one of a
team of over-seers. He's not finishing the bridge, but his role was necessary
to get the project from where it was to where it needed to be when someone
else would take over.

Technical projects are often the same. I'm generalizing, but you see a lot of
supporting evidence which suggests that you have your visionary, your
architect, your builder and your "last 10%"-ers. One person can be all of
these things, but almost never all at once on the same project.

What I learned when I came of age was that I am a Starter. I have good ideas
and the ability to rally others to a cause. I've evolved the ability to
network and communicate. I've forgiven myself for not being a Finisher,
because there are lots of people that hate starting and love to finish. There
are loads of people who will never start and hate finishing, but they are the
core team during the middle.

I suggest that you stop seeing your inclinations as a problem and start
thanking your lucky stars that you have a regular flow of potentially great
ideas. The main skill you need to develop is your ability to kill off the bad
ones early so that you can focus your passion and evangelism on the winners.

Chances are, if you got bored it wasn't going to turn out well anyhow. Listen
to what your subconscious is trying to tell you.

<http://www.humblepied.com/jessica-hische/>

~~~
cletus
> What I learned when I came of age was that I am a Starter.

The more accurate way to put this is "I am not a Finisher". The argument here
is that starting and finishing are two equally valuable skills that are
somehow equivalent.

A "Starter" is a fairweather friend. It's easy to start things. Most people
like starting things. Note this is different from networking and so forth,
which is really a separate skill altogether.

Employers, business partners and investors will look at what you've finished
and don't care what you've started. When something is 80% done or when times
are tough or it's time to soldier on and run the last mile of the marathon,
nobody wants the guy around who says "well, I started, that's my skill but I'm
done now, I suggest you find a Finisher".

Not being a Finisher isn't a different skill--it's a character flaw.

~~~
nostrademons
That's not entirely true. I get called on all the time, within my department
at Google, to start things. Usually I'm explicitly forbidden from finishing
them (even when I want to), either because they're "good enough" unfinished or
because they can be handed off to other people who are _not_ good at starting
things.

The ability to look at a vaguely specified problem and say "Okay, here's how
we're going to attack it, and here's what we need to build to have _something_
that works" is a very valuable skillset, and not everyone has it.

Now, remember that "finished" is not the same as "launched". Usually, my
responsibilities continue up to the point where we can get a product into the
hands of users and train the people who'll be maintaining it after me. But
there's a fairly large role for maintenance programmers, people who are
responsible for little tweaks even though the system is mostly working as
desired, and if you're a Starter, there's no reason for you to do that work
yourself.

~~~
mydnite
I think that your job sounds like a prototyper, which to say that your mandate
is to develop to a level where others can rebuild it with a point of
reference. Hence you're a starter and a finisher.

I have had a similar position.

------
vectorpush
As is probably common for most HNers, technically feasible ideas pop into my
head daily. My mind leisurely constructs state and class diagrams while I'm
taking a shower, by the time I dry off, my gameified crowdsourcing quant-bot
seems like the most amazing idea ever.

But what about my MMO and a dozen other half formed projects each with their
own litter of bastard experimental branches?

I was able to end this cycle with a little technique. Tell _no one_ about your
ideas. Not a SINGLE person. Instead, imagine their faces when they actually
_see_ it. If you spend four months working on a project in secrecy and then
become tempted to move on to something else that you're working on, you'll
quickly notice that the burst of endorphins you get as you enumerate the
features of your killer app is mostly absent. Suddenly, you realize that
you're four months out and now you have to start from scratch before you can
talk about how amazing your project is. If you can't help but talk about your
projects, then become a hermit (that's what I did).

~~~
tedmiston
Complete isolation worries me that the idea may not get validated in the first
place, and you may waste all that time as a result.

~~~
vectorpush
Your idea has already achieved validation from you, short of that your work
validates itself by existing in a functional state.

Besides, nobody knows what people want. Who would have guessed that the world
needed another site to post and comment on photos? Would _you_ validate that
idea? Yet Pinterest thrives. Just do it, then tell people.

------
_delirium
It's somehow interesting to me how often this comes up on HN. It's also a
problem I tend to have. But if you had asked me 10 years ago based on what I'd
casually heard outside of tech, it was _much_ more common for me to encounter
and worry about the exact opposite failure case in creative projects: not the
person who has 30 half-finished novels, but the person who's spent 30 years
writing their Masterpiece Novel that is probably not going to be a
masterpiece, but nobody can convince them that they really should be trying
out other things instead of sticking with this one project to the bitter end.
Basically, not _enough_ experimentation and bouncing around between projects,
and too much unwavering fixation on one Big Project that they've tied their
ego to.

Curious what the distribution of those two opposite problems is like! Among
creative types, it seems that the "stuck with it _too long_ " problem is more
prevalent in certain areas, like writing or filmmaking, but not as prevalent
among hackers. I suppose one compensation for it being so common for hackers
to fall into the "100 unfinished projects" trap is that it's less common to
find hackers who fall into the trap of, "I stuck with the first idea I ever
got for 20 years because I thought it was my One Big Idea".

~~~
dvdhsu
It's partially because the technology industry moves, while the film or book
industry doesn't.

Film and novels derive their quality from their plots. Plots transcend time.
Although the tools involved in creating a movie or book may change (improved
camera systems), the tools don't impact the plot much. Therefore, a book
written thirty years ago can have the same quality as a book written today.

The quality of an application is unable to transcend time. Sure, the idea of
creating a website to connect people might, but the quality of an application
isn't usually based on the idea, it's based on the implementation.
Implementations _cannot_ transcend time; that's why technological masterpieces
don't exist. A programmer who locks himself in his room and starts working on
"the next Facebook" now won't be very successful in thirty years: when he
launches, the whole technological landscape will have changed.

Programmers rarely work on something for too long, because they understand
that their products are dependent on technology, which changes over time. What
is amazing today is not amazing ten years from now.

------
gravitronic
Just like eating bad food and watching TV, being productive is a habit. Get in
the habit and you'll find yourself up early on weekends working on your
projects.

The way to feed the habit is with success. To experience successes, I have
found:

\- first minimize your goals. The less to do, the faster to succeed. The
fastest way to finish a feature is by removing it from the plan.

\- work on one project, maximum two. Any more and you will always jump from a
project when it gets hard or to the "not fun part".

~~~
daleharvey
I think this is the opposite of the solution, the problem isnt doesnt sound
like motivation to work, as mentioned they are always working on and excited
by 'the next big thing', Its certainly something I relate to.

The problem is 'feeling productive' and 'being productive' are different
things, its very easy to be working weekends and nights on your project, its
very hard to realise that the chances are the work you are doing wont make a
difference to anyone, most importantly yourself.

The second part I agree with, when someone does give a shit what you are
working on, 1. You will take the time to make it better, 2. You have already
solved the problem of a busy but ineffectual work cycle, move your motivation
from 'the next best thing that will be awesome' to 'something that someone
other than me cares about right now'

The best way I could recommend to do this is to look at all your projects that
are on your plate, pick the one that will take the shortest amount of time for
other people to start using and caring, release it tomorrow even if it sucks,
start pushing it out to everyone you know, get some feedback and get into a
cycle of working off peoples feedback

~~~
gravitronic
I don't consider "working on something I never released" as being productive
though. In my original post when I was talking about habitually being
productive I meant habitually shipping & following through on projects till
completion, not just habitually working on 'a' project without finishing.

------
demian
I had this problem, and this aproach helped me:

First, indentify if you are stuck. Create metrics if needed ("if I don't
advance this cuantitative variable in a week, then I'm _officially_ stuck").

Second, when you are officially stuck, you need to make a formal and conscious
decision to stop fully or keep going. Your current projects should have this 2
posible states: _Stoped_ (with an optional of "until X happens") or _Running_.

PS: You also need to _formally determine where the finishing line is_.
Otherwise, you'll never finish.

~~~
wyan
+1

I never thought of doing this, but seems like a brilliant idea!

------
kappaknight
Just a thought... if all you are bringing to the party are the idea and design
skills, maybe you are over estimating your contribution to these projects.
It's always important to finish stuff as a smaller piece of a large pie is
better than 100% of nothing. Perhaps this is the time to really evaluate if
giving away more than you're comfortable with will help you achieve your
dreams.

If your projects are really worth something, then it really shouldn't be
difficult for you to "sell" the idea to potential co-founders on an equity, or
part equity, part financial basis. If you cannot even sell it to developers or
business people, then the idea is probably not worth pursuing and you should
stop immediately, not weeks or months later.

On a side note, if you are spending 4 to 8 months on just design, you are
probably doing it wrong. You really need to meet some smart people, work with
them, and learn about each others' working habits. Developers won't blindly
follow someone who can only design, and bring zero business sense into a
venture. You either need to up your skills, get some more funding, find people
who can fill all the holes that you can't do, or come up with better ideas.

Most importantly, you do need to learn from your mistakes, or learn how not to
repeat the things that have failed you in the past. If you can't get past
these relatively simple hurdles and make the same mistake over and over and
over again, then you really should just get a job where you are assigned to do
only one thing instead - and maybe learn to be happy with that.

------
aaronbrethorst
I have trouble finishing projects sometimes, too. I'm sure everyone does. The
only way I've found to overcome it is to build something so simple that I can
launch it before that initial endorphin rush subsides.

Once it's out in the world and providing some modicum of value to me and
others, I can start deriving joy from fixing that one thing or adding that
other small feature that's keeping me from being able to do X.

Case in point: <http://www.viainstapaper.com>. I wanted to be able to see what
people were sharing from Instapaper. I came up with the idea around 11PM on
Valentine's Day, and spent an hour prototyping the Twitter search stuff in
Ruby. The next afternoon, I slapped a Rails frontend on it, and called it
'launched'[1]. Over the next couple days, I found myself getting annoyed by
missing features or nasty bugs, so I'd fix those. Once this subsided, I
announced it to the world, and it's been pretty much running on autopilot
since.

I wouldn't say it's set the world on fire, but it's gotten me the attention of
Marco Arment, Max Linsky (proprietor of Longform.org), and a handful of other
people whose opinions I greatly respect.

[1] Hooray again for Heroku, Ruby, Rails, Bootstrap, and all of the other
infrastructure that makes it possible to build something like this in just a
few hours.

~~~
minikomi
Nice little project, thanks for this

------
JohnnyFlash
One of my new years resolution's was to become a finisher. Last year I started
a number of projects, I wrote a lot of code. I learned a lot. Nothing saw the
light of day.

This year had to be different. I needed something to show for my time. I
became a finisher.

To make this change I did 3 things:

1) Reduce the scope on any new product ideas. Simple is best. I will only
allow myself a month to work on something. If I am working longer than that
and have nothing I can publicly show then the scope has probably buried me and
nothing will ever be released.

2) Say F __k it and _quietly_ release the project. Quietly because it isn't
100% finished. There are little problems here and there. I would like to spend
weeks tweaking a feature but if I do it without releasing anything I will get
bored and start a new idea. Once released I can iterate, improve and add
functionality.

3) Tell everyone what I working on as I am doing it. This means I need
something to show at the end of it or I will look silly. I then tell people in
order of technical expertise about its release. Tech savvy people understand
the concept of a beta and even an alpha. Others... not so much.

So far its working. I have already released something this year. Its still a
bit iffy but it is improving each week. I am becoming a finisher.

------
erikpukinskis
The problem is following a "maximizing" strategy, instead of a "satisficing"
strategy.

Maximizing means you do things based on what seems like the best possible
path. Satisficing is focusing on the minimum requirements to reach your goal.

Never finishing seems to be a combination of maximizing when you don't need to
bother, and also failing to identify the true _requirements_ for you. In order
for you to start a successful venture, there are a surprisingly large number
of fixed requirements:

1) You need a product that people care about

2) That you can charge for

3) With a viable customer acquisition strategy

4) Where 2) × 3) = enough to support you

5) It needs to be something you can actually implement

6) That you can stay excited about for many years

The problem is that maximizers will start maximizing on some handful of these.
Often they'll take #5 super seriously and start trying to execute perfectly on
their vision, do great design, etc, etc.

But then at some point along the way they start to realize that even if they
maximize on that axis, they haven't satisfied one of the core requirements.
Indeed, the _can't_ satisfy one of the core requirements. It's a depressing
realization, and the only option is to jettison the idea and move on to
something else.

Which leads me to my somewhat unexpected conclusion, that the solution to
never finishing may well be _not starting_. Which isn't to say that you should
twiddle your thumbs and not build stuff. Building stuff is a critical skill
that you need to practice.

But just treat your projects like side projects. Don't start running off and
thinking you're going to actually start a company until you have a project
that you really think can hit all six requirements.

And don't try to maximize any of them. The important thing is to get all six
cooking at an _acceptable_ level.

~~~
lusr
Some great observations here that I've learned the hard way myself.

I have concluded differently, however, based on the following lesson I have
learned repeatedly in all areas of life: until you _do_ something, you often
don't realize all the potential outcomes available. You can easily sit there
today and think "ah but how the hell am I going to get customers?" and then
choose never to work on your idea. That's OK - if you have something better to
work on (where better = some other idea where positive, realistic evaluations
of the "viable business" preconditions have been met and the total score beats
the score of the current idea you're evaluating).

But if you don't have something better it's STILL a good plan to start working
on your idea because (a) you'll learn something (b) you'll probably be
(pleasantly) surprised, either because a solution will materialize that you
didn't expect (are you really that brilliant and omnipotent that you can
predict all outcomes?), OR because it will lead you to thinking of a new idea
that doesn't have the same problem (how many successful start-ups switched
ideas half-way through implementation?).

For instance, you might end up building product X that generates you 100,000
users but doesn't make much money, even though it doesn't cost much to run.
But in the process of building X, you come up with idea Y, which turns out to
be a great idea according to the preconditions but only if you have 10,000
users... ah but look, you can probably advertise Y on X and suddenly you're
likely to have the users you need for Y to take off. By working on a problem,
you unconsciously and implicitly start exploring related problem spaces. By
not working on a problem... you can't solve it, or related problems you might
not even have noticed yet.

------
trotsky
Consider looking into the symptoms and characteristics of adult ADHD,
especially if you ever had episodes of hyperactivity as a child. It's probably
not what's going on, but frequently switching jobs (projects) can be a flag. 9
out of 10 adults with it are undiagnosed, and treatment is very effective.

~~~
nchlswu
Do you think you could provide some links or references? When I read your
comment, I immediately thing of overdiagnosing condition these days. I only
ask because I Think a lot of people in my generation (I guess that's Gen Y?)
jump to the "ADHD" or genuinely think they have something wrong with them,
when they are completely normal.

~~~
loopdoend
Having lots of unfinished projects is common with people with ADHD. We tend to
get over the initial excitement of starting something new and lose interest.
In order to be actually diagnosed with ADHD you would have to be affected in
other ways that seriously impact your life, but this is one "trait cluster"
that a lot of people with ADHD share.

[http://add-adhd.lifetips.com/tip/81525/adult-add-adhd/adult-...](http://add-
adhd.lifetips.com/tip/81525/adult-add-adhd/adult-adhd-add-self-test/adult-add-
adhd-self-test.html)

~~~
sopooneo
Me too. But I gut up and finish anyway.

While it may be true that most people with ADHD don't finish things, it also
true that most people who don't finish things _don't_ have any disorder at
all. They just don't finish things.

------
nyellin
Don't tell people what you are working on before you finish it.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you...](http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html)

~~~
Schwolop
I cannot disagree more. Opening up my ideas to ridicule and critique has been
the best thing I've ever done. I don't waste time on the bad ideas, people get
behind the good ones, and people see that I'm always doing _something_. I
don't have to deal with the "what happened to that project you were working
on" question much because my standard answer is "Boy was that a good learning
experience! I showed it to X, Y, and Z and they gave me great feedback and
inspired a bunch of new ideas that are more interesting. Take a look!"

Sure, I don't finish everything, but the important bit is that the things I
fail to finish are less good than the things I do finish. This is the "fail
fast" mantra in a slightly larger nutshell.

~~~
nyellin
I'm not advocating working on projects in secret. Once you have something even
slightly ready, by all means share it.

Incessantly talking about what you're _going_ to do before you've done
anything isn't admirable in my books.

~~~
jawr
I think there is merit in your argument; having something more tangible than
an idea means a lot more, especially when the op sounds like he is quite open
with his ideas and willing to express that initial excitement.

Maybe restraining yourself from this might make you work towards having
something more substantial that you can then in turn "show off".

------
forgotusername
I suffer from this too (approaching 30 now), however in recent years it's
improved.

It started by instead of rushing headfirst, instead recording ideas into a
text file. It quickly became apparent that revisiting something written mere
weeks earlier would reveal it as total crap, uninteresting, or the wrong
approach or similar. That file is now just under 1000 lines, only 3 of which
are probably worth revisiting later. It also seems the act of recording an
idea has a similar sense of reward that comes with working on it.

Another rule is to mercilessly cull anything half started in a fit of
excitement: my ~/src shrank from something like 100 directories to just over
30 right now, and half of those are 3rd party. Lose half a night's sleep
coding some crap? Recognize it's undirected crap, and rm it first thing in the
morning. The effect of this is less wasted work, more stuff getting recorded
and enduring review, less distraction and less temptation in future to mkdir
super_foo_project ; vim a.c.

I also promised myself to only work on an idea after finishing the previous.
Presently my last "big" idea started in 2008 and only needs a few weeks'
dedication to finish. In the meantime tens of weekend projects remain
unstarted, as they rightly should. When I finally gain the discipline to
finish that project, I'll be in much better shape to execute in future.

------
helen842000
I have serious issues with the number of projects I've started and not
finished (so much so, I named my blog after this type of thinking!)

It's important to think of some projects as pure experiments. That their
intentional end result was always going to be the information that you
learned. Which does feel 'unfinished', don't be hard on yourself for trying &
learning through experiments.

Unfinished projects that are far from the real end state you had in mind, need
to be addressed. If you often find yourself generally falling out of love with
a project after a few weeks work there will be a reason why. It's usually that
you a frustrated that you can't achieve the next objective on your own. Note
down the obstacle you are facing and what it would take to resolve it. You can
keep in mind what's needed, actively work towards it over time instead of
feeling bad about it.

We are so often reminded that time is limited that we are conditioned to
thinking that we need to build & complete things rapidly and that if we don't,
it's a failure.

It's not always possible to just keep pushing forward. You often need things
to happen outside of your control. Allow your projects time to wait for what's
needed & for situations to change. Revisit them regularly & know what the next
step looks like.

------
florin_
My 2c.

Unless you make this post disappear somehow it will hurt in the future. Or
help if you learn from this - now.

Recognize that the way you finish matters more than its beginning. Spend time
considering that.

Find someone much like you, but ready to change. It cancels the guilt, offers
empathy.

Submit to regular, voluntary accountability. Be brutally honest.

Got new ideas? Write them down in the moment of inspiration. Writing it down
cancels urge.

Once success is established with its reward, pattern is broken.

Always choose what is right at every step.

~~~
danielmeade
Thanks for your input here, your comment is actually very helpful. I realise
that if I don't learn from it now, the post could come back to haunt me. But
that's just it, it holds me accountable, which is the motivation I need to
sort it out.

------
jakejake
In my experience starters are the norm and finishers are less common. I
personally am a finisher, it drives me insane to leave a project incomplete.
People who are "starters" I find tend to view themselves more as idea people
who are maybe not great at execution - and that is true sometimes. But there
is a fine line between a starter who is a creative genius -vs- a starter who
is lazy and dumps all the annoying finishing tasks onto somebody else's plate.
There are also starters who organize things so that it's easy to finish them,
and there are starters who leave gigantic messes and problems with no
consideration about the finish work necessary.

I have a great partner in music who is very creative but has trouble finishing
things. The two of us make a great team. But, there will be times where I get
mad and make him do some finish work. Just because I like finishing things
doesn't mean I never have any creative ideas and want to do all the boring,
dull cleanup work all the time!

------
Maro
I wish G+ had more descriptive links, like

[http://plus.google.com/Daniel_Meade/Always_a_starter_never_a...](http://plus.google.com/Daniel_Meade/Always_a_starter_never_a_finisher)

~~~
scorpion032
Google doesn't need to care about SEO ;)

~~~
hfz
It could be more useful outside of SEO purposes, though. Pretty links allow
people to guess the content of a page by looking at the browser's status bar
when the link is hovered. It becomes especially important if the link text
itself is not descriptive enough ("click here").

------
ojbyrne
A cofounder helps with that, because they can call you out on it, and the
embarrassment is sometimes enough motivation to finish a project.

------
rmason
I think you're all missing the obvious solution. He should tell all of us what
he is working on and where he is stuck.

Think of the collective brainpower on here, surely someone will be able to
point him to a solution. Or the consensus should tell him that the problem he
is facing has no known solution.

He wrote the entire post without even hinting at the idea. Is he afraid that
we will find some flaw with it?

~~~
danielmeade
The problem comes down to programming, I decided to leave it from the post as
the post is more about the situation. I know I'm not alone with this problem,
and any non-specific advise offered to me from writing this post may also help
others.

~~~
DrCatbox
Programming? You can outsource parts of that, via elance.com or similar
services, if you don't know how to program yourself.

~~~
danielmeade
Very true. Unfortunately, for the time being at least, my budget doesn't allow
for this to happen, however cheap it may be.

------
brico
i had a similar problem: I worked on several projects parallel, had sheet
after sheet with notes of "awesome" ideas, was interested in everything, read
photography-blogs to recipe-sites, listened to podcasts and so on.

I lacked focus and once I shut off everything I realized that I didn't really
need to know all that stuff, it cluttered my mind. With my projects, once I
hit the first wall I prefered to start a new project or do something different
than spending some time on fixing my problem with the other project.

so what helped for me? I tried to create an environment at home where I could
focus: there is only 1 book on the nightstand and I'd rather not read one
night because I'm not in the mood for this particular book than starting a new
one as I once did.

I plan my meals for 1 week with the supplies I have and I only go shopping
once a week, this prevents me from coming home, not knowing what to eat,
losing time and energy on something trivial because once I had a problem with
one project I suddenly found myself shopping at the supermarket in order to
try out a new recipe I just read about on some forum.

So I just sit there and do my stuff and it has worked wonders. I write down
which parts I want to have finished by the end of the week and even if I don't
meet my goals I'm still going to bed satisfied because I know I couldn't have
done better that day and I'm eager to get out of bed on sunday because I know
exactly the night before what I will be working on the next day. And
interesting enough, once I finished some small projects I suddenly was able to
dismiss 90% of my ideas as not worth doing

The only book I've read on this subject is "self discipline in 10 days" and it
helped me with getting back my focus. Once I snap out of my workflow and my
mind starts wandering I use my "inner voice" to remind me that I have to focus
and it works :)

------
jjcm
Here's how I overcame it - I put my own money on the line. I hired artists and
writers for my recent project, even though I was easily capable of doing it
myself. If you pay a grand out of pocket though suddenly it keeps things in
perspective. You can tell yourself, "If I move on from this then I'll have
just thrown that money away." It's more motivating than you think.

------
tomkin
A lot of what you wrote hit home; I feel like I could have wrote that post
myself. So, having ADHD myself, I gotta be that guy who asks the patently
absurd but obvious question – have you ever been tested/diagnosed for adult
ADHD? And in no way am I asking rhetorically.

You see, ADHD - or more specifically, ADHD/PI [1] - is commonly overlooked,
with only 10% formally diagnosed [2]. ADHD/PI is sorta special because you're
not the kid shouting out in class or having problems sitting still. To the
average person, you'd just be suffering from depression or lack of sleep, etc.
Cycles of started projects with nothing to show for is definitely a symptom of
ADHD/PI, but of course, not a formal diagnosis.

Imposter's Syndrome [3] is something I think most ADHD/PI suffers can
sympathize with. When we look at others execute tasks, we can say, "Ya, I
could do that. I understand how that works." Execution is a whole other
matter. Programming/Design is such an attractive gamut for someone with
ADHD/PI because there is always something new to learn, or a better way of
doing it, but the incredible need to execute can only be seen far, far away.

ADHD/PI doesn't represent a huge percentage of the population in general. But
in our circles, I believe the percentage to be quite high. Anecdotally, 1/3 in
the arts/marketing/web have strongly associated symptoms of ADHD/PI. Let me be
clear: I am not suggesting that as much as 1/3 of people working in these
fields have ADHD or ADHD/PI. Just that, in a sea of introverted people - how
many are actually suffering with attention deficits and not knowing?

My over-arching point here is - it's important to get diagnosed. Even if you
choose not to take prescription medication to treat it, at least you'll have
awareness. And with that, you can identify with yourself a lot better.

EDIT: ADHD/PI is so different from what people would consider traditional ADHD
symptoms that it has been suggested it should be considered a completely
separate condition [4].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADHD_predominantly_inattentive>

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_attention_deficit_hyperac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder#Epidemiology)

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome>

[4]
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/clipsy.8.4.489/ab...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/clipsy.8.4.489/abstract;jsessionid=FC8A72374244C2DEE9F0AD2E53B91D79.d01t04)

------
gfodor
This post gives me an opportunity to highlight the major beef I have with the
"ideas don't matter, execution is everything" crowd. It's simply false. The
idea, and the vision of the world the idea leads to, are what can get you
through these moments. If you are working on a project that you don't truly,
deeply care about for some reason, you will throw in the towel early. This is
part of the reason I'm skeptical the recent YC experiment to bring on idealess
founders -- to me, if you're unable to show that you _can_ be passionate about
an idea (faking it doesn't count) you're unlikely to find one that will get
you through these cloudy days.

The best idea is to build something you want yourself. The next best type of
idea is something you know you will be unable to rest until what sits in your
mind becomes reality.

------
tsotha
Two things. First, plan out your milestones ahead of time. It's a lot easier
to keep your enthusiasm up if you break the project down into smaller projects
and just concentrate on the next milestone.

Second, if you're going to do something that requires expertise you don't
have, then you need to have a plan to deal with that from day one. Either
you're going to get someone to help (with equity, perhaps, if this is a
startup), or you develop the expertise yourself. Don't put six months into
something thinking the solution for this part will fall from the sky.

Planning. That's it, in a nutshell. Planning is the key step to finishing
_any_ project, personal or professional.

------
prawn
One of the responses includes:

"There is always another part of the project you could be working on - even if
it's mindnumbingly boring (like adding i18n)."

That, to me, sounds like a poor suggestion for this kind of problem. Anything
that doesn't get you traction with your project, so that any users start
yabbering for tweaks and progress to keep you motivated, are likely to be a
mistake.

If the problem is that you're a front end developer running up against back
end problems, then you need to be spotting this well in advance or else you're
wasting time.

------
veb
Interesting comment, "start your day as a producer". I've seen this around
before, but I'm not sure what it means.

How would it work? Would you wake up, and have _one_ hour to produce
something? Would it be related to your project? Writing a blog post about your
project? Or is that beating around the bush, and actually not producing
anything worthwhile?

Does the thing that you produce, have to mean anything? Or does it only have
to mean something to you?

I only ask, because I'm exactly like this guy, and I only want to better
myself.

~~~
fab1an
The first things you do in the morning seem to 'set the tone' for the rest of
the day. E. g., have you ever noticed how the first song you listen to often
sticks with you for hours? So instead of firing up HN or Reddit right after
you woke up, start your day with something that requires _your output_ \- this
doesn't have to be an essay, but could be as quick as:

\- writing that uncomfortable email that's been lingering on your todo list \-
_begin_ to write your next blog post \- not a coder myself, but I would assume
that this all applies to writing code / fixing/finding bugs, too.

On a related note, the _last_ thing you do before you sleep can also have a
very positive effect on your next day's productivity. I find that going to
through / defining the top 3 goals for the day after helps me structure my
work and be more motivated to pick up directly on those todos right after I
get up.

------
pknerd
You must finish something at the beginning and end of the day. Make sure you
divide tasks in a way that your first and last tasks does not last for long.

------
realschool
Its good to finishes projects, but its also important to realize that some
projects can't ever be finished, or may not be worth the effort of completing
them. That's not to say one should drop a project when it gets hard or to
think your self out of completing it, but more to the idea of being reasonable
about expectations while still trying your hardest.

------
sopooneo
If you never finish you are never taught the gut wrenching lesson that the
last 10% really is 90% of the work. Even for an MVP.

------
bradt
You need a partner or an advisor. Someone else who you feel you can't give up
on. At least that's what has worked for me.

~~~
thepumpkin1979
Agree 100%. As a solo player I usually abandon ideas before publishing them, I
tend to lost the initial excitement of the idea and got tired before even
launching the MVP. Having a partner(non-technical for my case) in my current
project really helps me to focus and push for the MVP(yes, I'm on early stage
and I get easily exhausted by the amount of work a CTO has to do when you are
bootstrapping).

------
redcodenl
I've got it too, and so do a lot of people I work with. I wonder if having a
lot of half-finished projects is common in the IT world, I think it is.

For me the joy is in figuring out how I would construct stuff, once everything
is figured out... the joy is gone. The last step, actually making it, is
almost never reached.

------
sendos
I see this as a dichotomy between people who are doers vs
thinkers/creatives[1]

If you are a thinker/creative and not a doer, you need to align yourself with
a doer, in order to make great things happen.

[1] <http://andrewoneverything.com/its-the-music-stupid>

------
alecco
You're on a good path when you acknowledge the problem. Overconfidence bias
makes us take impossible challenges. Put the big project on hold and do a few
small projects with good ROI. And try to partition the big project into
smaller ones.

------
gwern
Sunk costs are not always fallacies: <http://www.gwern.net/Sunk%20cost> If
people like OP engaged in sunk cost fallacy more, they'd be better off.

------
alaskamiller
Everyone has an opinion because everyone has been there.

But at the end of the day it's simply: just do it.

And keep talking. Be loud. Let people know what you're doing.

One done thing begets another thing to do.

------
colevscode
What are you working on? What is your road-block?

------
crusso
Made me think of this: <http://xkcd.com/1027/>

------
tled
Maybe you should read this book: The Dip by Seth Godin.

------
halayli
Are you competitive?

------
seivan
My curse as well.

------
Arxiss
Story of my life

