Ask YC: How do you maintain motivation in face of boredom?

[shabda]

I left my job around 3 months ago to start a startup (Single founder). Built staging.dashbard.com , www.42topics.com . Now I need to market www.42topics.com , but 3 months working alone has left me bored out of my mind! I am reasonably social (Well for a geek!), but working alone is just getting on my nerves! And as long as I was coding, I was happy. But now i find marketing this unsatisfying and boring. Did I say boring enough times? What do I do?

[edw519]

Your boredom is a signal from within that something is fundamentally wrong. I would find out the cause of the boredom rather than work on the effect(s).

You've done all this great work and now it's time to share it. (Don't even use the word "market". It's so overused, it's meaningless.) You should be having a ball doing that. Why not?

Have you lost passion about your "mission"? If so, why?

Is there something wrong with your site that makes you reluctant to promote it? Then maybe you should fix that.

Is this a startup or a hobby? If it's a hobby, then forget about "marketing"; just move on to the next one.

Would you be more comfortable on a team? If so, then work on that.

This is simply another puzzle to be solved, but instead of data and algorithms, it's people and ideas. Hope to soon be hearing about how you solved it. Good luck.

[apu → edw519]

I wouldn't agree with your first statement. In any job, no matter how enjoyable or rewarding overall, there are elements which are more interesting and others that are less so.

In my job, the ratio of fun stuff to non-fun stuff is quite high, but still finite -- there's still a fair amount of boring stuff I need to work on periodically. I find that one technique which works well is to try to pipeline my work (if possible) such that I can work on multiple aspects of it simultaneously. Then I can devote a few hours per day (or days per week) on the boring stuff, with the thought of working on the exciting stuff immediately afterwards as a strong motivator.

BTW if anyone finds a job that's uniformly exciting/fun throughout with no boring parts, let me know =)

[edw519 → apu]

"In any job", "In my job", "if anyone finds a job"

Notice a pattern?

You're right, most jobs can have boring elements.

I assumed that OP was talking about his startup, not his job.

I am building a startup that, by definition, is what I want it to be. I can't imagine anything about it being "boring".

[alex_c → edw519]

I am building a startup that, by definition, is what I want it to be. I can't imagine anything about it being "boring".

This kind of, for lack of a better term, blind optimism, is one thing that gets to me after a while on News.YC, and I'm a pretty positive guy to start with.

I simply cannot believe that every single last aspect of your start-up is enjoyable to you. Either you have someone else doing the parts you find boring, or you steer around the boring parts (possibly to the detriment of your start-up), or you're convincing yourself that you don't find them boring.

I've spent the last week and a bit doing some work which is at best mind-numbingly boring, but which might be essential to our success. I will definitely be happy with the results, but that doesn't mean I wasn't bored out of my mind and whining about it the entire time; it just means I want to get it done faster so I can go back to something fun.

There's nothing WRONG with finding certain aspects of the work boring, and I think that's a dangerous signal to send. The boring parts have to be done too. What happened to "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration"?

[edw519 → alex_c]

Maybe "boring" is not the best word. Maybe we are really talking about "more fun" vs. "less fun".

Naturally, some things are more fun that others, but I am never bored in my startup.

Frustrated sometimes, yes. This week I lost a whole day because I had overlooked something simple one day last week. Had to retool the whole stupid thing when I really wanted to build the next level up. So the exciting part had to wait a day. No big deal. It happens. But was I ever "bored"? Hardly.

A little background. I sat in class bored to tears for 17 years. Then, I did work in 86 other companies (none of them mine) before I started this one. I have a clear vision of what I want and a fairly clear idea of how things should work. I love both the technical details and the people part. Usually, I can't wait to get to the next thing.

The only thing I really don't like is when a client calls for me to fix something on their crappy system. Shifting gears sucks.

Boring? No, I just don't see it.

[alex_c → edw519]

Maybe we can find some common ground in the word "tedious" rather than "boring". Boring does have the connotation of waiting for class to end or waiting for 5PM to go home.

[edw519 → alex_c]

Agreed

[tom_rath → edw519]

I own my company, love the technology, am delighted in the revenue it's giving me and am absolutely bored to death with the task I am doing today. It needs to be done and I'm doing it, but this day has been an absolute slog with every keystroke.

It doesn't matter how much you love your company: You're going to have "Ya know what? Fuck this!" days every now and then. Just learn to roll with 'em when they happen.

[tom_rath]

I find it helps to remember that if I don't do the boring stuff my company is going to fail, I'll be working for someone else again and the only reason for failure will be that I was too bored to do the work that was essential for success (which is a really lame excuse).

If you can't focus today, get outside for a bit and stretch your legs. Watch the pretty people in the park. Get a coffee, sit on a sunny patio and revel in the fact that you're an entrepreneur driving your own destiny and can take a goddamn afternoon off if you need it.

Then, when you're recharged, return to your office and get back to it, because that work isn't going to finish itself.

[michael_dorfman]

Try to think more carefully about why it is boring. Examine the boringness. What's boring about it? What is there within you that is unable to connect with it? Don't worry about blame, or being judgmental-- just try to figure out what's really going on beneath the surface. If you do so, the answer to your problem will be apparent.

[girk]

Have you heard about coworking?

To learn more about coworking, check out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/business/businessspecial2/...

If you're interested in the concept, find a Jelly near you: http://workatjelly.com/

You can also read more at the coworking wiki: http://coworking.pbwiki.com/

I think you should go to a Jelly. Seems like it would an especially effective way to alleviate "boredom" you are experiencing, which may not be stemming from the work you're doing, but rather just the lack of social interaction as a result of working very hard by yourself for an extended period of time. At a Jelly, you are working "by yourself," but amongst others.

Also, if it really is the marketing-type work that you find unsatisfying and boring, going to a Jelly will possibly help you find a cofounder/designer/marketing-type person with which to team up.

[epi0Bauqu]

I know what you mean. I am a single founder for half of my projects, and for the other half I'm the sole coder in a virtual office. In both cases, the situation is the same: I'm coding by myself in my house.

One solution I've found for the boredom is to switch between projects when you get bored, or work on different (non-boring) aspects of the same project.

Another is to just get out of the house. I usually go out for lunch. And I've been trying to go to local startup events, including a monthly hackathon I created for that very purpose.

A third is of course to get a face to face co-founder (at least for some of the time), or to move your working environment to a shared space with other startups. I haven't taken the latter step mainly because I live pretty far from startup central in Philly and I don't want to pay for office space.

[randallsquared → epi0Bauqu]

I haven't found a solution to boredom. That said, as someone who's been programming at home for years, knowing that I was going to go out at lunch would destroy much of the benefit of working at home. In order to start work in earnest, it's important for me to feel that I won't have any interruptions indefinitely.

Today, for example, I'm expecting to go to dinner, and here it is before 2pm, and I'm reading news.yc instead of working, because it's really hard to start working when "I know I'll just have to stop", in spite of also knowing that I could get a lot done before then.

Nevermind, I guess this is just a personal failing. :)

[epi0Bauqu → randallsquared]

It's probably more like my personal failing :)

I work great for a few hours at a time, but then I need an extended break. My best hours are in the morning. So I usually work from around 8am to 11:30-noon, and then go out to lunch. Granted, sometimes I don't do that and work through lunch at home and go out to dinner instead. But often, I need a break about then.

I usually read the papers (WSJ and local) during lunch, and then when I come home I'm up for a few more hours of work before dinner.

[cstejerean → randallsquared]

I have the same problem. Knowing there is something I have to do in X hours makes it harder fore to even start doing work. The solution for me is to have flexibility. This means I sometimes forget to eat or forget to sleep.

[nostrademons → epi0Bauqu]

"work on different (non-boring) aspects of the same project."

I've found this helps me a lot. When I was first starting out, I found boredom to be a real problem, because there were only so many things that I could do productively on my project. If I didn't have the storage backend done, I had to work on that, because otherwise there was nothing that'd have a concrete effect. Same with the basic UI skeleton - it needed to be done before anything else in the UI was useful, so if I didn't want to work on it, tough.

Now there are many more potential "attachment points" to the project, and it's easier to find something interesting to do. If I don't want to work on this UI widget, I can find another UI widget that needs doing. If I don't want to do UI at all, I can work on the backend or runtime libs. If I get really desperate, there's always things that need to be refactored or tested further or documented.

[blender]

Highly suggest you find someone that likes marketing:

kluster.com cambrianhouse.com

You should be prepared to give equity in return for services.

Cheers

[aaronblohowiak → blender]

outsource boredom!

[babul]

Find someone to join you who loves doing that e.g. with marketing experience/degree and passion for online marketing i.e. who is into SEO, SEM, AdWord marketing, affiliate linking/campaigns, article publishing campaigns etc. etc.

So you can do what you love, they can do what they love, and you should both be moving in the same direction to achieve success at an optimal pace for you.

[Tichy]

I need marketing for my astrological moon calendar, too. In fact, I have not updated it for months. But maybe if somebody else became interested...

While I was at it, it was lurking around page 3 or 4 in Google searches. Now it is not even among the first 10 pages anymore :-(

Lesson: only take on projects that I can really identify with (astrology doesn't fall into that category...).

[epi0Bauqu]

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121175

[wenbert]

I have been developing my product for a few months now. It is starting to get boring - a bit. Usually I have to push myself and find some motivation. That is why I decided to rent a room with my hacker friend and designer cousin. We are setting things up as I type this comment :P Perfect mix... ^_^

[gcheong]

Is it your idea of what "marketing" is that turns you off? If so, I suggest you take a look at Bob Walsh's eBook "MicroISV Sites That Sell" at 47hats.com. It's a book aimed at developers who need to market their work, but don't consider themselves marketers.

[jdavid]

a thought:

why are you ok coding alone, but with marketing you feel like you need someone around?

i wonder if it has anything to do with confidence? when i am doing something i know. being alone is fun, because i feel productive. when i am doing something where, i might have at least a moderate amount of learning to do, i like to bounce the ideas off of someone. i also find that doing things like:

writing business plans

graphic design

marketing

etc.. other socially reflective processes

I find its really hard to do it alone, I usually need people to bounce the idea off of. I also, find that customers are great at playing this role for marketing. They know what they want, and why they would like your service. They have given me plenty of ideas in this realm.

[wheels]

Sometimes you can work out trades. Do you know anyone that works in marketing that could use some web work done? (I've done this before with programming in exchange for graphic design.)

[babul]

Find a co-founder to bounce material off and interact with. Ideally, you will motivate each other!

[giles_bowkett]

I think this is probably why YC looks for co-founders.

Personally I handle boredom by doing something else. This works incredibly well for programming and incredibly badly for interacting with the government. To be more specific, if something is boring, I won't do it, so if you're the government, and I haven't been paying my parking tickets, your only option is to make paying my parking tickets more interesting. In practice this has meant stealing my car.

It's actually very unwise to create incentives for the government to make your life more interesting. The only leverage they have there is various forms of bullying.

I now motivate myself with fear as well as curiousity, but unfortunately, curiousity remains much more effective.