> You have a duty to your past self to release the project. It’s a way to honor your work and sacrifice. All the time spent on the project is time you could have spent on something else. That time was not without cost.
Ouch!
I strongly encourage you to read up and understand the sunk cost fallacy. In general, do not let past efforts be the guide for future decisions.
I've quit a lot of projects in my life. And it was the right thing to do. Put another way, many of the valuable projects I've completed would not have been accomplished had I stuck to the projects I had sunk time into.
> You also have a duty to your future self to release the project. Every time you don't release a project, you're telling yourself that you’re the kind of person who doesn't ship.
If you tell yourself that every time you don't release a project, the fix is not to release the project, but to stop telling yourself these lies.
Despite the strong complaints, the article isn't that bad and does have some merits.
> Despite the strong complaints, the article isn't that bad and does have some merits.
I will likewise critique your critique:
Instead of creating a new thread you post directly to the author who responded to an unrelated message. Since the author is obviously responding to criticisms, why did you feel the need to expand a thread with a non-related article quotation you took issue with rather than start your own? It seems to me you wanted to ensure that the author read what you wrote because you felt it was particularly important for him to see it. I don't agree.
The article is about finishing projects instead of starting new ones -- it is not about when to cut losses. The two topics may seem related but I argue that they are not.
The type of person to leave an unfinished project on the table because it isn't 'good enough' is the person for whom the author is writing. It is not the type of person who can't let a project go despite the damage that project is causing to other things or despite the project being a lost cause.
Example:
The person who makes a bet 'if I risk X in exchange for A% of success happening and I lose, I can live with that, but I couldn't live with not trying' is not the person who makes a bet 'I lost X, which I couldn't afford to lose, but if I risk everything I have left or go into debt, then I can make back what I lost and be whole again'. One is an entrepreneur and the other is a gambling addict. The same type of difference exists in the two cases you present.
Your final sentence seems to be a half-assed acknowledgment that you found value in the work, but you are unable to give praise so the complements you use are negated put-downs (not bad, despite complaints, is not meritless). I think that this form of praise is worthless and makes you look petty. Stop doing it.
> Instead of creating a new thread you post directly to the author who responded to an unrelated message. Since the author is obviously responding to criticisms, why did you feel the need to expand a thread with a non-related article quotation you took issue with rather than start your own? It seems to me you wanted to ensure that the author read what you wrote because you felt it was particularly important for him to see it. I don't agree.
I have no idea what you are talking about. My comment is on the same topic as the head of the thread, and provides more details on that original critique.
I stand by my original assessment. I am not seeing a connection between 'the use of 'you' vs 'I' personalization and the effectiveness of the difference in using them' and 'a request to investigate a logical fallacy and the relevance of such fallacy to the article'.
Glad you still liked it, despite the strong complaints!
I hear your feedback, but I don't fully agree with all of it. I do understand the sunk cost fallacy quite well, but thinking about the time committed can be a useful framing to help push past the fear of releasing or drudgery of the last 10%.
> If you tell yourself that every time you don't release a project, the fix is not to release the project, but to stop telling yourself these lies.
I mean, if you never ship you're literally the kind of person who doesn't ship though. You can tell yourself whatever you want, but eventually you'll stop believing yourself because you know it's not true!
> I mean, if you never ship you're literally the kind of person who doesn't ship though
This is a bit of an "argument from extremes" fallacy. If you don't ship 90% of what you work on, but do ship the remaining 10%, then that may well not only be fine, but optimal.
My point is that saying to yourself "Every time you don't release a project, you're telling yourself that you’re the kind of person who doesn't ship." is a faulty belief. There's a whole spectrum between releasing everything and releasing nothing. Some people like myself start a lot of things (big and small), and there is no practical way to finish all of them - life is simply not long enough. For such people, not finishing 80-90% of those projects and focusing on a few that seem to have higher value is the way to go. Such a person should not (and hopefully does not) tell themselves that "they're the kind of person that doesn't ship." If they do tell themselves that, the solution isn't to start shipping everything they start, but to change their internal monologue.
I strongly recommend you get to know intricately the lives of successful creators. The majority have more projects unfinished than finished.
I recognize the author’s argument from the Atomic Habits books — inner motivation heavily stems from the picture of self.
The example used in the book (there used for stopping negative habits) was that of smoking. A smoker that is looking to quit goes out with a colleague for a smoke break, and the colleague offers him one. If he refuses by saying “I don’t smoke now/I’m trying to quit”, he will much more likely not be able to quit his addiction. But if he answers with “I’m not a smoker”, he is on a good path.
It was a really eye opening part of that book for me - people’s view of themselves recursively depends on past experiences/facts and inner motivations. If we do (or don’t do in case of smoking) something a lot of time we can accept it as our new selves, and vice versa.
> What you do at your day job doesn't matter, (unless you work for yourself), if you ship while at work, your work is a place that ships. Not you.
Naw, this is just a toxic take.
A project is a project, whether it's a solo one or collaborative. Whether it's "personal" or professional. 99.9999% of software that actually gets widely used (because it's useful to many people) has more than 1 coder, and arbitrarily deciding that the only "real" coding you can claim to is unpaid solo coding is a weird gate to keep.
Does the Sistine Chapel not make Michelangelo "someone who completes paintings" because he was doing paid work for the Vatican? Please.
I think an easy to grasp version of sunk cost is 'buying is the same as holding' (modulo fees and taxes) from investing. In other words: you can spend today working on the existing project that's going nowhere, or on the newer idea that has potential. You allocate the day either way - it's not somehow less because it was left on the default option of what you were already working on.
Understanding the sunk cost fallacy and having an opinion like the authors are not mutually exclusive. It doesn’t always apply and shouldn’t be used as an excuse to abandon whatever one feels like without guilt.
> It doesn’t always apply and shouldn’t be used as an excuse to abandon whatever one feels like without guilt.
Unless you made commitments to others, one should never feel guilt for not finishing a project.
Something I learned in my 20's: Guilt is one of worst long term motivators, and almost never yields anything positive. It's why those who guilt trip others are best avoided.
And applying sunk cost fallacy indiscriminately can itself be fallacious as the rewards may be so unpredictable or intangible as to elude simple calculus
Ouch!
I strongly encourage you to read up and understand the sunk cost fallacy. In general, do not let past efforts be the guide for future decisions.
I've quit a lot of projects in my life. And it was the right thing to do. Put another way, many of the valuable projects I've completed would not have been accomplished had I stuck to the projects I had sunk time into.
> You also have a duty to your future self to release the project. Every time you don't release a project, you're telling yourself that you’re the kind of person who doesn't ship.
If you tell yourself that every time you don't release a project, the fix is not to release the project, but to stop telling yourself these lies.
Despite the strong complaints, the article isn't that bad and does have some merits.