Project completion is a hallmark of a successful developer. Can you share your strategies for maintaining focus, staying motivated, and ultimately becoming a 'finisher' of your coding projects?
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Top comments (7)
Chronically not finishing projects is a hallmark of ADD or ADHD. It's something I've dealt with quite a bit, and I've just gotten to the point where I force myself to finish. I simply don't allow myself to start something new until I finish an existing project. I add the new idea to the list and then I get back to finishing the current project.
Yes, I minimize what I am allowed to do/see/have/etc. until I am finished with one project. It helps with that clarity. But I also understand giving up on a project that seemingly isn't going to come to fruition. Some things truly are worth closing the door on. But I feel you learn in all situations, even in "catastrophic failures." But that's just me.
Oh, another habit I've formed is not to make lists actually. Before I'd have a sea of things that I could access. Many interesting roads (books, articles, projects, hobbies, etc.) but as a human, especially one with limited resources - all ventures cannot be taken. So eliminating most of the clutter down to the finite bits helped. Which is how I tend to treat everything. Including what I bring into my house. I've got to see some kind of grand picture for a thing, or it's never making it past m'doors.
I might miss out on some fun ideas, but I'm getting to enjoy more things from start to finish - because I get to narrow my scope compared to what my rat riddled brain wants.
I've realized lately that I must be an undiagnosed ADHD because I face the same issues and different thought processes described by others.
Having a list and even taking the time to detail a future project but having things prepared in a certain order seems to be the only way for me to force my self to reach completion of present ones.
Something that helped with this and changed the way I organize projects is Monday.com, is definitely worth looking into and has a free version that does everything you will need for solo development.
Happy Venturing 😉💭
Might sound silly, but just do it. We put too much time and energy into trying to remove distractions, increase our productivity with applications that take 3 hours to set up, for a meager 3 seconds saved in our day to day life, or worse, we just procrastinate by looking at ways to further increase our productivity.
If you want to become a 'finisher', just sit down and do it. Don't worry about the minor advantages VIM gives you over VSCode. Don't try and find a good reason to do it, just do it.
It's not silly tbh, that's one of my life mottos. Something I say very often is "The only way to do something is to just do it!"
Happy Venturing 😉💭
I find it really useful to think about the code your working on as a cog in a big machine ⚙️ You should think about the possible consequences for end-users, for testers/QA, other teammates, project managers and ultimately the business side of what you're doing 💸
When you understand how what you're building affects everyone, then it's not "just another feature" or "just another piece of code". You become a finisher, a shipper. You evolve from a software developer into a solutions shipper 🚢
Yes, become hyperfocused about the thing that you want to do.