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TOP Motivation killers to avoid 💀

Alexandru-Dan Pop on July 06, 2020

Motivation is the secret engine that keeps us going every day. While it's hard to stay motivated all the time, it's important to know a few things ...
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Mike Talbot ⭐

I get caught up on things and can't let go. It's frustrating to go in loops - I should just move to something else and come back, but there's something in me that feels that's cheating. I do try to tell myself "it all needs to be done" and sometimes that gets me out of the cycle.

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Alexandru-Dan Pop

Having to context switch a lot is really hard.

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Carlos Roso • Edited

Twitter.

That site drains so much out of me. I get distracted, anxious, and in general takes a toll on my mental health. I'm considering in leaving it all over. It's not that it is terrible, it's just that it doesn't allow me to be greater.

I know it's not the case for everyone. Just my 2c.

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Alexandru-Dan Pop

But I like your tweets! 😊 You share interesting things!

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Carlos Roso

Thanks for the support mate! :D

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Nans Dumortier

Not doing the things you like for an extended period of time. We often have to do things we don't like, it's a part of our job. But for example, as a developer, not having the opportunity to actually develop (spending you're whole time in meetings, reviews, deployments ...) is a huge motivation killer.

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Alexandru-Dan Pop

Yeah, there needs to be a sweet spot between coding and doing those support kind of tasks.

We also need to understand that some of these support tasks are probably the ones that are required by the business. So doing that you might be providing more business value than just developing.

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Nans Dumortier

for sure !
I just lived a bad example of this, where I had to spend my whole time doing deployments, troubleshooting and such, and not actually develop anything for several months, and it really did kill my motivation 😅

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Keff

The thing that de-motivates me the most is the lack of communication within the team and the feeling that you are the only one working on a project at any given time.

I had a bad experience a couple of weeks back with this, but talking with the team about the issue and giving some solutions made them realize that part could be improved and how to do so. Now we have more meetings, and we communicate more than ever.

Not having a clear path and plans about the project kills motivation quite a bit, this is something I'm trying to improve at our company.

Worth pointing out that working on an excessive amount of projects can de-motivate as well, currently I'm working on about 4 projects, but a couple of months back it was up to 10, ranging from an Angular Dashboard to a Flutter app, passing through a Symphony API. This was quite tough, changing context so many times was a killer.

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Alexandru-Dan Pop

You are doing awesome work raising awerness on communication issues. I have also experienced this, maybe now more since everyone is WFH.

One thing that de-motivates me is when people don't involve you in project communication and decisions are made in an non transparent way.

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Keff

One thing that de-motivates me is when people don't involve you in project communication, and decisions are made in a non-transparent way.

Totaly, that was part of the issue I had. If they don't involve you in the project, you can end up feeling like you are just a tool, and that can have harmful effects from my experience.

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ManiKDixit

Even though I've just completed my graduation in Computer Science Engineering and learning Web Development right now , I still agree with everything mentioned here .
I compare myself a lot with other people and it's very overwhelming. Sometimes I feel that all this effort I'm putting in is of no use , I'll never be a pro because others are already so good at it .
I have improper sleeping patterns because I just stay up and keep studying or overthink if I'll gt there
Also the social media thing, it's a big time waste on top of that it makes me anxious, idk why but it does.
Maybe it's time to act upon these motivation killers
I'm glad you wrote this :')

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Alexandru-Dan Pop

Glad to hear you want to take action! Cheers to that!

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Shemona Singh
  1. Not having some kind of plan - whether its for an app I’m building or for my day, a rough level of clarity is always nice
  2. Anything that scrolls infinitely - Dev.to is an exception 😉
  3. Saying “yes” to every commitment / biting off more than you can chew - can quickly lead to burn out
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Alexandru-Dan Pop

Well said 👍. A small trick for number 3 is to under promise and over deliver. It's not a silver bullet for all circumstances, but in many of them it works!

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Shemona Singh

Agreed! 😁

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Madza • Edited

reading news, social media

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Lucas Bleme

It's so easy to surround ourselves with negativity! This is a productivity killer that is often unnoticed. Great post!

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Alexandru-Dan Pop

Thanks!

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