Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulhauggis | Hacker News Reader

I used to have incomplete projects, but now I set goals and work on the project until that goal is met.

I've worked with many other programmers on side projects and many times, unless someone is getting paid, they get bored and lose interest when they have to start working on something that's not cool or interesting.

I learned the hard way that these are also the same types of developers I don't want to start a company with.

View on HN

Same here. My barrier for "starting" a project is much higher than it used to be. I might think about a project, or bounce the idea off some friends. However, if I commit to starting something, I finish it. I usually have some sort of deadline, but will finish the project regardless of whether I think it's still worth pursuing after I've started.

I think having this "barrier to entry" is important. When I have an idea, I tend to let it sit and re-evaluate after the "lust" stage has died down. Often times, I realize perhaps it wasn't as cool as I thought. If something is still nagging at your days later, perhaps it's a good candidate to evaluate.

Regarding your last point, I think also what a lot of developers struggle from (myself included) is project ADD. Having discipline to scope something out, set sane (and near) deadlines and focus only on that is important to seeing it through to completion. Good work on developing that discipline.

This has been common in my experience as well, I have many unfinished projects in my past but not so many from recent years. I have also seen many indie game devs struggle to translate their passion into an alternative to a job because they just don't treat it like one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com